THE    PAGEANT    OF    PARLIAMENT 

VOL.    I 


CONTEMPORARY 
PORTRAITS: 

Men  of  My  Day  in  Public  Life, 
By  the  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Algernon 
West,  Author  of  "  Recollections," 
"  One  City  and  Many  Men." 
With  many  Illustrations.  Demy 
8vo,  cloth.  i8s.net. 

Sir  Algernon  West,  at  one  time 
secretary  to  Mr.  Gladstone  when 
Prime  Minister,  and  who  has  filled  a 
number  of  important  official  positions, 
is  well  qualified  by  his  personal  ex- 
perience and  the  number  of  his 
acquaintances  in  the  upper  regions 
of  the  official  world  to  write  this 
book,  which  includes  reminiscences 
of  Sir  Louis  Mallet,  Lord  Blachford, 
Lord  Sandford,  Sir  E.  May,  Lord 
Welby,  Matthew  Arnold,  Sir  E. 
Bradford,  and  many  others.  Sir 
Algernon  West,  as  his  previous  work 
shows,  is  a  delightful  raconteur,  and 
the  present  is  one  of  the  most 
informing  and  charming  he  has 
written. 

T.  Fisher  Unwin  Ltd.      London 


SPEAKERS    CHAIR   AND    CLERKS'    TABLE    IN    HOUSE    OK    COMMONS. 
(From  Sir  Benianiin  Stone's  pictures,  British  Museum.) 


THE  PAGEANT   OF 
PARLIAMENT 


MICHAEL    MacDONAGH 

AUTHOR    OF    "the    SPEAKER    OF    THE    HOUSE  " 
AND    "the    reporters'    GALLERY  " 


VOL.   I 


T.    FISHER    UNWIN     LTD 
LONDON  :   ADELPHI   TERRACE 


First  jpublished  in  1921 


{All  rights  reserved) 


::  5\\ 


PREFACE 


4» 

u-  The   purpose  of  this   book,   briefly   stated,   is   to   describe 

t-    Parliament  doing  its  work,  as  a  living  organization,  in  the 

framing  of  laws,  in  the  levying  of  taxes  and  in  their  spending, 

^   and  in  the  consideration  of  the  discontents,  anxieties  and 

-'  necessities    of  the    Commonwealth,    with    a    view   to    their 

removal  or  amelioration.     I  have  embodied  in  my  book — 

c    if  I  may  say  so  without  sounding  the  loud  timbrel  too  vain- 

gloriously — considerable  experience  as  a  Journalist  of  General 

Elections  and  by-elections  in  all  parts  of  Great  Britain  and 

Ireland,   and  of  thirty-five  years'   observation   of  the  two 

[,_-  Houses  of  Parliament  from  the  Reporters'  Gallery,  supple- 

^  mented  by  a  study  of  their  history  and  traditions,   laws 

^  and  procedure,  the  careers  of  leading  statesmen,  and  the 

^_  political  principles  by  which  they  guided  their  management 

f    of  public  affairs. 

There  are  many  valuable  text-books  on  the  Constitution 
by  learned  lawyers  and  philosophical  writers.  My  book 
does  not  aspire  to  be  classed  with  these  grave  and  profound 
treatises.  They  are  of  high  documentary  value,  but  I  think 
it  is  doubtful  whether  one  can  really  get  to  know  Parliament 
x  from  a  study  of  them  alone.  They  ignore  the  human  side 
=^-  of  Parliament.  Often  they  seem  to  present  Parliament  as 
'f  a  mere  abstraction — a  thing  of  rules,  principles  and  theories 
unrelated  to  the  human  personalities  who  compose  its 
membership.  Parliament  cannot  be  divorced  from  life  any 
more  than  Literature.  Rightly  to  appreciate  Parliament  in 
its  strength  and  in  its  weakness  you  must  have  an  acquaint- 
ance with  it  in  being,  and  an  understanding  of  the  politicians 
who,  whether  in  office  or  out  of  office,  whether  in  Govern- 
ment or  Opposition,  bend  it,  or  try  to  bend  it,  to  their  will. 
Mr.  Speaker  Lowther,  presiding  at  a  lecture  on  the  House 

279334 


6        THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

of  Commons,  told  a  story  which  serves  to  illustrate  the 
difference  between  theory  and  experience.  When  Sir  William 
Anson,  the  author,  as  Mr.  Lowther  truly  said,  of  "  a  very 
grave  and  almost  classical  work  "  on  the  British  Constitu- 
tion, was  being  escorted  up  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons 
to  take  the  oath  and  his  seat  for  the  first  time,  an  old  and 
witty  Radical  member  who  happened  to  be  sitting  beside 
Mr.  Lowther  said  to  him  :  "  Is  this  the  gentleman  who  has 
written  a  great  work  on  the  House  of  Commons  ?  "  "  Yes, 
that  is  the  very  man,"  replied  Mr.  Lowther.  "  Well,"  the 
other  remarked,  "  he  will  find  it  a  very  different  place  from 
what  he  thought  it  was."  It  is  idle  for  historical  writers 
to  try  to  depreciate  the  importance  of  personality  in  affairs. 
Certainly  in  Parliament  it  is  personality  that,  even  more 
than  opinion,  is  the  determining  factor  in  every  great  political 
crisis. 

I  trace  the  progress  of  a  Parliament,  its  unfolding  and 
development,  from  the  General  Election,  when  it  is  con- 
stituted by  the  votes  of  the  people,  until  the  day  the 
Sovereign,  on  the  advice  of  the  Cabinet,  pronounces  the 
sentence  of  its  dissolution.  I  describe  its  framework  and 
machinery,  its  chief  officers,  its  ceremonies,  usages  and 
customs,  its  contrasts  of  solemnity  and  gaiety  ;  the  Party 
forces  which  move  it  and  direct  its  course  ;  how  Adminis- 
trations are  made  ;  the  duties  of  Ministers  ;  the  pleasures 
and  woes  of  the  M.P.  ;  how  Public  and  Private  Bills  are 
passed  ;  how  Supplies  are  voted  ;  the  mode  in  which  the 
proceedings  of  both  Houses  are  reported  for  the  newspapers  ; 
and  the  varied  elements,  aspects  and  usages  of  Parliament, 
whether  it  be  regarded  as  the  historic  temple  of  British 
liberties,  equally  ancient  and  venerable  with  Westminster 
Abbey  over  the  way  ;  the  scene  of  great  achievements  in 
oratory  and  statesmanship  ;  the  institution  by  which,  as 
the  incarnation  of  the  current  political  thought  of  the  day, 
questions  affecting  the  well-being  of  the  community  are 
determined  by  legislators  and  administrators,  or  the  field 
upon  which  the  continuous  and  exciting  duel  between  Parties 
is  fought  at  close  quarters,  with  all  the  wliims,  oddities, 
weaknesses  of  human  nature  as  well  as  with  its  noble  qualities. 
I  have  made  some  excursions  into  the  domain  of  history. 


PREFACE  7 

That,  of  course,  was  inevitable  in  writing  about  Parliament, 
whose  roots  lie  so  deep  in  the  past.  But  I  have  avoided  as 
much  as  possible  the  broad  beaten  tracks,  and  have  turned 
down  unfrequented  or  little-trodden  by-ways  in  search  of 
fresh  and  apt  anecdotes  to  enliven  my  descriptions,  in  fact 
and  in  experience,  of  the  Pageant  of  Parliament. 

There  is  one  general  observation  which  I  should  like  to 
make,  and  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  make  it  here.     My 
studies   have  led  to  the  discovery  that  there   has   hardly 
ever  been  a  time  when  it  has  not  been  asserted  by  some 
one  or  other,  in  writing  or  in  speech,  that  the  authority 
of  Parliament  and  the  esteem  in  which  it  is  held  have  sadly 
declined.     There  is  nothing  surprising  in  that.     Cynics  and 
wits   of  all   ages   have  tried   their   hand   at   making   great 
institutions,  as  well  as  great  men,  butts  at  which  to  shoot 
their  ridicule  and  contempt.     Parliament  has  not  escaped 
the  common  fate  of  the  mighty  and  the  sublime.     It  has 
been  described  as  inefficient  and  corrupt.     Its  downfall  has 
often    been   prophesied.     Yet    its    foundations    were    never 
deeper  or   better   laid  than  they  are   to-day,   broad-based 
as  they  are  on  electoral  comprehensiveness  and  the  people's 
will.     Parliament    as    I    have    presented    it — even   with    all 
reverence  and  admiration — may  not  be  perfect.     It  has  its 
faults.     After  all,  its  legislators  and  administrators  are  but 
human.     But  it  is,  perhaps,  as  fine  and  perfect  an  instru- 
ment of  democratic  government  as  can  humanly  be  devised. 
Ancient  and  renowned  as  it  is,  it  stands  not  remote  and 
apart.     On  the  contrary,  it  is  of  the  fabric  of  the  life  of  the 
people.     It  makes  a  living  reality  of  the  great  principle — 
"  Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people." 
It  is  the  country's  chief  political  instrument  of  progressive 
civilization.     It  is  idle,  in  the  light  of  experience,  to  talk 
of  its  being  clumsy,  inefficient,  slow.     More  than  ever  does 
it   make  possible  the  closest   and   quickest   impact   of  the 
country's  mind  upon  government  and  administration.     In 
the  World  War  it  signally  proved  its  practical  and  speedy 
utility.     Statesmen    obtained    quickly    and    surely    all    the 
measures  they  deemed  necessary  for  the  national  safety  and 
the  enemy's  defeat.     Whenever  Parliament  seems  to  have 
lost  caste  the  cause  may  be  traced,  not  to  the  institution 


8        THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

itself  but  to  its  membership,  the  confusion  of  its  Parties,  the 
weakness  of  its  Ministry.  The  remedy  is  not  to  destroy  it, 
and  put  in  its  place  some  untried  mode  of  government  and 
administration  ;  but,  by  changing  its  composition,  to  restore 
it  to  the  proper  service  of  the  Nation.  Parliament  is  fully 
capable  of  accomplishing  whatever  may  be  asked  of  it,  in 
the  changing  thoughts  of  men,  probably,  till  the  end  of  all 
time,  and  of  doing  so  soberly  and  slowly  by  process  of 
evolution,  or  with  revolutionary  rapidity  and  completeness, 
as  the  situation  demands. 

MICHAEL  MacDONAGH. 


CONTENTS 

PAOE 

PREFACE  .  .  .  .  .  .5 

CHAPTER 

I.  THE    MEMBER   AND    THE    CONSTITUENCY  .       11 

II.  WOOING   OF   THE   ELECTORS  .  .  .20 

III.  A    NEW    PARI.IAJVIENT    IN    THE    MAKING  .       33 

IV.  THE    country's    VERDICT        .  .  .53 

V.  TRIALS    AND    TRIBULATIONS    OF   THE    M.P.  .       66 

VI.       THE       FASCINATION      OF     THE      HOUSE      OF 

COMMONS  .  .  .  .80 

VII.  PALACE    OF    WESTMINSTER      .                  .  .88 

VIII.  ASSEMBLING    OF    THE    NEW    PARLIAMENT  .    103 

IX.  TAKING    THE    OATH    OF    ALLEGIANCE  .    115 

X.  MR.    SPEAKER  ....    122 

XI.  "  ORDER,    ORDER !  "     .                 .                 .  .130 

XII.  HOW    A    GOVERNMENT    IS    MADE            .  .141 

XIII.  DISAPPOINTED    HOPES                  .                  .  .154 

XIV.  THE     KING    AND     HIS     MINISTERS    AND    THE 

COUNTRY  .  .  .  .166 


10      THE  PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

CHAPTER  FAGB 

XV.  OFFICE    AND    ITS    SPOILS           .                  .  .    175 

XVI.  PENSIONS    FOR   MINISTERS       .                  .  .187 

XVII.  THE    SPEECH    FROM    THE    THRONE       .  .    201 

XVIII.  DEBATE    ON    THE    ADDRESS    TO    THE    KING  .    218 

XIX.  THE    SERJEANT-AT-ARMS          .                  .  .    225 

XX.  A   NIGHT    IN  THE    HOUSE    OF    COMMONS  .    235 


THE   PAGEANT  OP  PARLIAMENT 

CHAPTER   I 

THE   MEMBER   AND    THE   CONSTITUENCY 


At  the  General  Election  the  Party  in  office  throws  down 
its  superb  challenge  to  the  Party  in  Opposition.  "  We 
appeal,"  they  say,  "  to  the  solemn  judgment  of  the  Nation 
on  the  political  issues  in  contention  between  us."  This 
invoking  of  the  electors'  decision  at  once  raises  a  question 
of  political  morality  as  well  as  of  constitutional  practice — 
the  relation  in  which  a  Member  of  Parliament  rightly  stands 
to  his  constituency.  Is  the  M.P.  a  representative  or  a 
delegate  ?  As  these  capacities  may  be  said  to  be  in  a  sense 
identical,  it  is  well  to  put  the  question  in  a  fuller  and  more 
definite  form.  Is  the  M.P.  an  agent  sent  to  the  House  of 
Commons  by  the  electors  of  a  certain  geographical  district 
to  state  their  opinions  solely  and  act  in  accordance  with 
them,  or  may  he  exercise  his  own  independent  judgment, 
even  against  the  will  of  those  to  whom  he  owes  his  seat 
in  the  Assembly  ?  Edmund  Burke  dealt  with  this  question 
on  the  hustings  at  Bristol,  during  the  General  Election  of 
1774,  in  a  speech  that  is  memorable  in  political  literature 
as  a  classic  statement  of  the  constitutional  position  of  an 
M.P.,  in  the  opinion  of  the  representative,  at  least,  and  also, 
it  must  be  said,  in  the  opinion  of  a  large  body  of  the  electors. 
Burke  said  it  ought  to  be  the  happiness  and  glory  of  a 
representative  to  live  in  the  strictest  union,  the  closest 
correspondence,  and  the  most  unreserved  communication 
with  his  constituents.     Their  wishes  ought  to  have  great 


12      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

weight  with  him,  their  opinions  high  respect,  their  business 
unremitted  attention.  "  But,"  Burke  goes  on,  "  his  un- 
biased opinion,  his  mature  judgment,  his  enUghtened  eon- 
science,  he  ought  not  to  sacrifice  to  you,  to  any  man,  or 
to  any  set  of  men  Hving.  These  he  does  not  derive  from 
your  pleasure  ;  no,  nor  from  the  Law  and  the  Constitution. 
They  are  a  trust  from  Providence,  for  the  abuse  of  which 
he  is  deeply  answerable.  Your  representative  owes  you  not 
his  industry  only,  but  his  judgment,  and  he  betrays  instead 
of  serves  you  if  he  sacrifices  it  to  your  opinions."  Never- 
theless, Burke  was  returned  to  the  House  of  Commons  as 
Member  for  Bristol  in  1774,  for  no  more  exalted  reason 
than  that  his  political  views  were  in  accord  with  those 
of  the  majority  of  the  constituency  in  regard  to  the  matters 
that  then  divided  Tories  and  Whigs. 

In  1778  Burke  supported  two  Bills  that  were  presented 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  one  relaxing  some  of  the  restric- 
tions on  Irish  trade,  the  other  removing  some  of  the  civil 
disabilities  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  These  votes  were  in 
conformity  with  Burke's  mature  judgment  as  a  statesman 
as  well  as  with  his  Irish  prepossessions.  But  they  were 
also  directly  in  opposition  to  the  material  interests  and  the 
religious  tenets  of  the  people  of  Bristol.  That  being  so, 
Burke  fell  into  disfavour,  and,  however  honourably  his 
unpopularity  was  earned,  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should 
be  brought  to  account  by  his  constituents  on  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. This  was  afforded  by  the  General  Election  of  1780. 
In  a  noble  speech  from  the  hustings  in  defence  of  his  action, 
he  exclaimed  :  "I  did  not  obey  your  instructions.  No  ;  I 
conformed  to  the  instructions  of  truth  and  Nature,  and 
maintained  your  interests  against  your  opinions  with  a 
constancy  that  became  me."  He  went  on,  in  passages  of 
moving  power  and  earnestness,  to  declare  that  he  did  not 
stand  before  them  accused  of  any  venality  or  neglect  of 
duty.  "  No,"  he  cried,  "  the  charges  against  me  are  all 
of  one  kind  :  that  I  have  pushed  the  principles  of  general 
justice  and  benevolence  too  far,  further  than  a  cautious 
policy  would  warrant,  and  further  than  the  opinions  of  many 
would  go  along  with  me.  In  every  accident  which  may 
happen  through  life — in  pain,  in  sorrow,  in  depression,  and 


THE   MEMBER   AND   CONSTITUENCY     13 

distress,  I  will  call  to  mind  this  accusation  and  be  com- 
forted." But  the  popular  prejudice  against  Burke — a 
prejudice  aroused  solely  by  the  expression  of  his  liberality 
and  broad-mindedness  in  action — was  too  strong  to  be  over- 
come. The  great  statesman  and  philosopher  was  compelled 
to  retire  early  from  the  contest,  badly  beaten. 

The  electors  of  Bristol  have  been  put  in  the  pillory  for 
intolerance  and  selfishness,  while  Burke  stands,  for  all  time, 
a  shining  example  of  self-sacrificing  devotion  to  independence 
of  mind.  Many  years  have  passed  since  then — years  of 
steady  advance  in  political  enlightenment,  and  in  public 
duty  on  the  part  of  electors  as  well  as  of  representatives — 
and  questions,  more  vital  and  fundamental,  arise  constantly 
for  settlement.  Yet  where  to-day  is  the  constituency  ready 
to  elect  a  man  who  is  opposed  to  its  political  views,  however 
great  a  genius  he  may  be,  and  however  stainless  his  honour  ? 
There  is  nothing  more  certain  than  that  Bristol  would  expel 
Burke  in  the  twentieth  century  as  it  expelled  him  in  the 
eighteenth,  if  his  political  opinions  were  distasteful  to  the 
majority  of  the  electors,  or  if  his  parliamentary  actions 
were  opposed  to  what  they  conceived  to  be  their  interests. 
A  hundred  years  hence  the  Nation  may  have  reason  to  bewail 
our  obtuseness,  and,  in  resentment  of  the  trouble  we  have 
caused  them,  bitterly  to  cry  out — ^"  Fools,  fools,  fools  !  "  The 
thought  does  not  disturb  our  political  equanimity.  We  are 
resolved  to  yield  our  opinions,  prepossessions,  prejudices  to 
no  man  who  would  tell  us  to  think  and  act  differently — aye, 
though  he  be  our  M.P.  ! 

In  no  constituency  will  the  plea  be  accepted  that  the 
Member  must  be  allowed  to  decide  what  is  best  ultimately 
for  it  against  its  opinions,  or  even  against  its  prejudices — 
if,  indeed,  the  one  can  be  distinguished  from  the  other  in 
politics.  It  is  not  only  that  in  this  conflict  of  one  mind 
against  many  the  wrong-headedness  is  just  as  much  likely 
to  exist  in  the  representative  as  in  the  constituents.  What 
is  more,  the  representative  system  is  a  check,  not  on  the 
people,  but  for  the  people.  The  chief  function  of  the  House 
of  Commons  is  to  protect  the  people's  rights  and  extend 
their  social  well-being  ;  and  as  under  our  democratic  system 
the  people  are  free  to  vote  as  they  please  and  for  whom 


14      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

they   please,    it   is   inevitable   that   they   should   constitute 
themselves,  in  each  constituency,  the  supreme  judge  as  to 
the  man  best  fitted  faithfully  to  discharge  a  trust  that  means 
so  much  to  them.     That  is  not  to  say  that  a  Member  of 
Parliament  is  expected  to  outrage  his  honour  and  conscience 
by  supporting  measures  which  he  secretly  abhors,  or  believes 
in  his  heart  to  be  detrimental  in  the  long  run  to  the  true 
interests   of   the  Nation,  because  they  find  favour  with  a 
majority  of  his  constituents,  and  to  oppose  them  would  entail 
the  loss  of  his  seat.     He  votes,  of  course,  according  to  his 
convictions.     Nor  is  it  necessary  for  him  to  comport  himself 
in  an  attitude  of  servility  towards  the  electorate.     Once  he 
is  returned  he  may,   if  he  so  pleases,   entirely  change  his 
politics,  and  cross  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons  without 
having  beforehand  to  go    back    to    his  constituency,  as  a 
delegate  in  a  like  situation  would  be  bound  to  refer  to  the 
body  or  society  of  which  he  was  the  chosen  spokesman. 
The  constituency  has  no  immediate  control  over  the  repre- 
sentative.    They    cannot    forthwith    deprive    him    of    his 
authority  and  position,  as  a  society  or  other  body  can  recall 
and    supersede    a    delegate.     But    the    representative    who 
votes  according  to  personal  convictions  which  are  out  of 
harmony  with  the  political  principles  of  the  majority  of  his 
constituency   must   be   ready   to   pay   the   penalty   of  this 
conflict  between  his  opinion  and  their  judgment — the  penalty 
of  being  summarily  dismissed,  like  Burke,   at  the  earliest 
opportunity.     In  a  word,  such  a  representative  is  rejected 
by  the  constituency  for  the  very  same  reason  that  the  country 
frequently  discharges  a  Government  at  the  General  Election 
— incompatibility  of  political  temper.     The  feeling  of  most 
electors  is  that  they  would  be  false  to  themselves — false, 
at  any  rate,  to  their  opinions — were  they  to  vote  for  a  candi- 
date  with   whom   they   were   in   disagreement   on   political 
issues,  no  matter  how  great  he  might  be  as  a  man. 

2 

Goldsmith,   in   well-known  lines,  gently   reproves   Burke 


as  one- 


Who,  born  for  the  universe,  narrowed  his  mind, 
And  to  Party  gave  up  what  was  meant  for  mankind. 


THE   MEMBER   AND   CONSTITUENCY     15 

On  the  contrary,  it  would  be  truer  to  say  that  Burke 
was  poHtieally  undone  because  he  gave  his  grand  talents  to 
what  he  regarded  as  the  service  of  mankind  rather  than 
to  Party,  particularly  in  relation  to  the  French  Revolution, 
when  the  action  of  his  Party  was,  in  his  view,  opposed  to 
the  real  interests  of  humanity.  Moreover,  Goldsmith  uses 
the  word  "  Party  "  in  a  disparaging  sense.  His  idea  of 
Party  politics  seems  to  have  been  that  it  was  a  game 
unscrupulously  played  for  the  stakes  of  mere  power  and 
influence,  greater  wealth  and  station  ;  and  there  are  people 
even  to-day  who  agree  with  him.  It  is  a  strange  notion, 
and  one  that  appears  to  me  to  be  entirely  without  founda- 
tion. Undoubtedly  the  inspiring  force  of  Party  is  a  sincere 
regard  for  the  good  of  the  Commonwealth.  It  is  true  there 
are  politicians,  with  little  principle  and  less  scruple,  who 
become  Party  men  for  the  advancement  of  personal  ambitions 
which  are  mean  and  unAvorthy  in  the  circumstances.  But 
all  the  Party  movements — Conservative,  Unionist,  Liberal, 
Radical,  Labour,  Irish  Nationalist,  Free  Trade,  Protection — 
are  each,  in  the  main,  an  honest  effort,  however  you  or  I 
may  think  it  mistaken,  to  effect  the  greatest  good  of  the 
greatest  number.  As  to  the  ultimate  object,  all  Parties 
are  agreed.  It  is  the  methods  by  which  this  common  end 
had  best  be  attained  that  creates  the  fundamental  differences 
between  Parties  and  excites  political  antagonisms. 

"  Party,"  says  Burke,  "is  a  body  of  men  united  for 
promoting  by  their  joint  endeavour  the  national  interest 
upon  some  particular  principle  upon  which  they  are  all 
agreed."  No  one  else  has  written  more  powerfully  in  support 
of  the  view  that  Party  discipline  is  essential  to  strong  and 
stable  parliamentary  government.  Yet  Burke  himself  was 
a  most  indifferent  Party  man.  He  had  that  stern  indepen- 
dence of  judgment  which,  refusing  to  yield  even  in  details, 
is  fatal  to  the  unity  of  purpose  and  action  without  which 
efficient  Party  organization  is  impossible.  From  the  Party 
point  of  view,  Burke,  with  all  his  political  philosophj^  was 
just  what  Fox  described  him — "  a  damned  wrong-headed 
fellow  !  "  The  theory  advanced  by  Burke  that  a  Member 
of  Parliament  ought  to  be  returned  unfettered  by  political 
pledges  because  it  is  his  bounden  duty  to  exercise  his  free 


16      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

and  independent  judgment,  irrespective  of  the  constituency's 
opinions  and  desires,  on  the  pubHc  questions  that  arise  for 
decision,  is  an  exalted  counsel  of  perfection.  Perhaps  it 
makes  a  demand  too  stern  and  unbending  for  human  nature 
under  any  form  of  Constitution,  however  Utopian  or  perfect. 
In  a  Parliament  based  on  the  Party  system  it  is  impossible 
of  acceptance.  The  power  of  the  House  of  Commons  is 
exercised  not  according  to  any  fixed  rule  of  law,  but  according 
to  certain  broad  general  principles — Justice,  Equity,  Reason 
— and  the  current  interpretation  of  these  principles  is  guided 
by  the  dominant  political  opinions  of  the  day. 

Members  of  Parliament  are,  in  practice  if  not  in  form, 
Party  delegates.  To  them  the  majority  of  the  electorate 
have  relegated  their  authority  to  support  or  oppose  in  the 
House  of  Commons  the  controversial  political  questions  of 
the  time  in  the  light  of  certain  Party  principles.  Whatever 
local  character  the  M.P.  possesses  may  be  said  to  disappear 
as  soon  as  he  presents  the  return  of  the  writ  to  the  Clerk 
at  the  Table  of  the  House  of  Commons,  shakes  hands  with 
the  Speaker,  and  then,  amid  Party  cheers,  makes  his  way 
to  the  Liberal,  or  Unionist,  or  Labour  benches,  according 
to  the  Party  views  he  was  really  chosen  to  support.  By 
that  action  he  stands  revealed  as  a  Party  delegate.  And 
yet  he  is  a  representative,  in  a  sense  deeper  and  wider  than 
that  which  prevailed  of  old,  before  the  uprise  of  the  powerful 
Party  organization.  He  is  a  representative  not  solely  of  the 
local  views  of  his  constituency,  but  of  one  section  of  the 
paramount  and  possibly  abiding  opinions  of  the  Nation  as  a 
whole. 


The  country  being,  in  the  main,  divided  politically  into 
three  chief  groups  of  thought — Conservative,  Liberal  and 
Labour — the  machinery  for  the  promotion  of  political 
principles  and  Party  interests  is  principally  supplied  by 
three  great  rival  organizations.  These  are  the  National 
Union  of  Conservative  and  Constitutional  Associations, 
controlled  by  the  Conservative  Central  Office  ;  the  National 
Liberal  Federation,  controlled  by  the  Liberal  Central 
Association  ;    and    the    Labour    Party,    controlled    by    the 

1 


THE   MEMBER   AND   CONSTITUENCY     17 

National  Executive.  Each  of  these  organizations  is  aided 
by  several  subsidiary  but  independent  bodies,  which  are 
formed  for  the  promotion  of  sectional  political  interests 
within  the  main  movement  to  which  they  are  attached. 

The  systems  of  the  National  Union,  the  Liberal  Federation 
and  the  Labour  Party  are  much  alike  in  methods.  Those 
of  the  two  ancient  political  Parties  may  be  taken  for  the 
purposes  of  illustration.  In  most  constituencies  there  is  a 
branch  of  each  organization.  These  local  bodies  elect  the 
council  for  the  county  or  for  the  borough.  These  councils 
send  delegates  to  the  annual  conferences  of  the  Conservative 
Union,  or  the  Liberal  Federation,  by  which  the  programme 
of  each  Party  is  considered,  revised  and  confirmed,  and  a 
central  executive  is  appointed  with  supreme  authority.  The 
branches  look  after  Party  interests  locally.  The  Federation, 
or  the  Union,  speak  for  the  Liberalism  or  Conservatism  of 
the  country  as  a  whole. 

But  in  reality  Party  organization  is  controlled,  for  the 
Conservatives  by  the  Conservative  Central  Office,  and  for 
the  Liberals  by  the  Liberal  Central  Association.  Both  the 
Union  and  the  Federation  are  founded  upon  a  popular  and 
representative  basis,  and  their  annual  meetings,  at  least, 
are  open  to  the  Press.  They  each  fulfil  the  double  functions 
of  educating  political  thought  in  the  country,  and  of  enabling 
the  Party  leaders  in  Parliament  to  gauge  the  drift  of  opinion 
within  the  Party  on  current  questions  of  the  day.  But  of 
the  working  of  the  Conservative  Central  Office  and  the 
Liberal  Central  Association  little  or  nothing  is  made  public 
• — nothing,  at  any  rate,  that  is  really  important.  What  is 
known  is  that  each  consists  of  a  staff  of  officials  directed 
by  a  Chief  Agent,  who  is  appointed  by  the  parliamentary 
leaders  of  the  Party.  The  Chief  Party  Whip  in  the  House 
of  Commons  is  also  a  leading  director  of  the  affairs  of  each 
of  these  central  bodies.  In  each  is  vested  the  expenditure 
of  the  Party  fund,  subscribed  by  wealthy  supporters,  and 
popularly  supposed  to  be  immense.  Each  has  a  voice  in 
the  selection  of  candidates.  The  favour  of  headquarters  is 
often  the  best  passport  to  selection  by  the  local  association. 
Each  body  has  an  agent  permanently  residing  in  constituencies 
where  political  opinion  is  pretty  evenly  divided.  "  Give  the 
VOL.   I.  2 


18      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

men  a  smoking  concert,"  these  Party  agents  are  advised 
in  a  little  book  called  How  to  Win  an  Election,  "  where  they 
can  obtain  a  reasonable  quantity  of  good,  pure,  wholesome 
beer,  rather  than  a  tea  opened  with  a  touch  of  the  religious 
element."  Each  body  also  has  gentlemen  continually  on 
the  road — rival  political  travellers,  as  it  were,  bringing 
round  to  the  electors  the  newest  and  most  attractive  samples 
of  principles.  Liberal  or  Conservative. 

Such  is  the  British  variant  of  the  American  Caucus.  It 
was  imported  from  the  country  of  its  origin,  in  1873,  by 
Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain — a  man  who  has  profoundly 
influenced  Party  tactics  and  strategy,  as  well  as  political 
opinion,  in  Great  Britain — and  was  first  set  up  in  Birmingham 
under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Francis  Schnadhorst.  The  Caucus 
was  at  once  attacked  as  a  most  mischievous  element  in  public 
hfe.  It  was  contended  by  old-fashioned  Liberals  and  Tories 
alike  that  it  would  make  impossible  the  free  expression 
of  the  will  of  the  constituency.  The  electors  would  become 
an  unthinking,  passive  mass  under  the  dominion  of  head- 
quarters, and  the  destiny  of  the  Nation — controlled  as  it  is 
by  the  exercise  of  the  franchise — would  pass  into  the  hands, 
perhaps,  of  unprincipled  and  artful  demagogues.  But  the 
Caucus  had  come  to  stay.  It  was  adopted  by  the  Conserva- 
tives as  well  as  by  the  Liberals.  In  fact,  the  idea  of  forming 
a  Party  organization  in  this  country  first  originated  with 
Disraeli. 

In  the  General  Election  of  1868  the  Conservative  Govern- 
ment, of  which  Disraeli  was  Prime  Minister,  was  hopelessly 
beaten  at  the  polls.  There  was  practically  no  organization  of 
the  Conservatives  at  the  time,  and  the  work  of  bringing  it 
into  existence  was  entrusted  by  Disraeli  to  a  young  barrister 
who  had  been  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  a  year  or  two — 
John  Eldon  Gorst.  Gorst  began  by  establishing  the  "  Central 
Conservative  Office."  He  then  proceeded  to  create  a  per- 
manent system  of  local  bodies  throughout  the  country  for 
the  registration  of  voters,  linked  them  up  in  the  National 
Union,  and  kept  at  headquarters  a  register  of  approved 
candidates  from  which  the  local  bodies  could  make  their 
own  selection.  The  dissolution  of  the  Liberal  Parliament 
in  1874,  unexpected  though  it  was,  found  the  Conservatives 


THE   MEMBER   AND   CONSTITUENCY     19 

accordingly  quite  prepared,  and  they  returned  from  the 
polls  victorious.  The  Liberals  then  set  earnestly  to  work 
on  the  same  lines,  and,  improving  upon  the  Conservative 
example,  produced  an  even  more  perfect  electoral  machine. 
In  1877  Schnadhorst  founded  the  National  Liberal  Federa- 
tion, and,  becoming  the  chief  organizer  and  electoral  adviser 
of  the  Liberal  Party,  it  was  to  his  exertions  that  the  immense 
Gladstonian  victory  of  1880  was  mainly  due.  Schnadhorst, 
on  his  retirement  in  1887,  was  presented  with  10,000 
guineas  by  the  Liberal  Party  as  a  slight  recognition  of  his 
great  services  to  their  cause. 

In  truth,  the  rise  of  the  highly  developed  and  powerful 
Central  Party  organization  was  a  destined  stage  of  political 
development  in  Great  Britain  as  well  as  in  the  United  States. 
An   essential   adjunct   of  a   constitutional   system   like  the 
British — the    two    fundamental    principles    of    which    are 
democracy  and  Party  government — is  the  Party  organization 
for  the  education  of  public  opinion  in  its  tenets,  and  for  having 
its  forces  ready  to  take  the  field  at  the  General  Election, 
the  outcome  of  which  is  the  supremacy  of  one  Party  or  the 
other  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  a  term  of  years,  and, 
consequently,  the  paramount  influence  of  one  set  of  political 
principles  or  the  other  in  the  government  of  the  Nation. 
Moreover,  the  effect  of  Party  organization  has,  on  the  whole, 
been  beneficent.     It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  to  it 
is  due  the  healthy  political  vitality  of  Great  Britain.     It  has 
aroused  an  interest  in  public  affairs  and  government,  and 
by  the  propagation  of  ideas  it  has  given  to  the  democracy 
coherent    political     convictions.     If    public    opinion     were 
unorganized,  its  aimless  ebbing  and  flowing — knowing  not 
what  it  really  desired — its  tendency  to  separate  into  numerous 
factions,  some  of  them,  possibly,  with  wild  and  visionary 
aims,  would  have  led  in  time  to  the  instability  of  the  Con- 
stitution.    The    Party    system,    on    the    other    hand,    has 
undoubtedly   contributed  to  the   strength  and   security  of 
the  State  by  bringing  about  the  convergence  of  the  various 
streams  of  political  thought  into  three  main  channels,  each 
with   settled   principles,   Conservative,   Liberal  and  Labour 
in    tendency,  and    pursuing    ends    that    are   on   the  whole 
national  as  well  as  rational. 


CHAPTER    II 

WOOING   OF   THE   ELECTORS 


Party  organization  reached  its  highest  point  of  perfection 
and  influence  before  the  outbreak  of  the  World  War  in  1914. 
Yet  even  at  that  period  it  was  remarkable  how  small  both 
the  Conservative  Union  and  the  Liberal  Association  were 
in  actual  membership.  It  was  unusual  to  find  among  one's 
acquaintances,  however  wide  the  circle,  anyone  who  belonged 
to  either  organization.  Their  power  lay  in  propaganda 
and  direction.  And  if  millions  of  voters  acknowledged  their 
sway,  there  were  other  millions,  though  not  quite  so  many, 
perhaps,  over  whom  they  had  no  influence.  At  many 
General  Elections  before  the  War  not  more  than  50  or 
60  per  cent,  of  the  electors  went  to  the  polls.  The  absentees 
were  equally  numerous  in  electoral  contests  immediately 
after  the  War. 

Who  are  they,  these  silent  voters,  who  constitute  so 
unknown  a  quantity,  so  sore  a  puzzle,  to  the  Party  managers, 
and  sometimes  confound  their  nicest  calculations  ?  A  man's 
politics  depends  upon  his  individual  temperament  and  point 
of  view,  but,  like  his  religion,  it  is  largely  the  accident  of 
his  birth  and  home  environment  or  early  education.  I 
have  seen  an  election  address  in  which  the  candidate  said  : 
"  I  was  born  a  Conservative  on  August  29,  1848."  Another 
man  is  a  Liberal  because  of  the  chance  that  it  was  Liberalism 
and  not  Conservatism  which  he  unconsciously  imbibed  at 
his  father's  knee.  In  fact,  the  sentry  in  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's 
comic  opera  was  not  far  wrong  in  singing  that  every  little 
boy  or  girl  who's  born  into  the  world  alive — 

Is  either  a  little  Liberal, 
Or  else  a  little  Conservative. 

20 


WOOING   OF  THE  ELECTORS  21 

But  the  silent  voter  seems  to  have  disdained  to  adopt  fixed 
and  settled  political  opinions — like  the  generality  of  man- 
kind— either  by  inheritance  or  by  an  effort  of  thought.  It 
may  be  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the  object  of  politics,  in  the 
general  sense  of  the  word  ;  it  may  be  that  he  knows  what 
it  implies,  but  thinks  it  unimportant.  At  any  rate,  the 
cries  of  Party  make  no  appeal  to  him.  He  owes  allegiance 
to  none  of  the  three  great  political  organizations,  nor  to 
any  of  the  many  smaller  groups  formed  for  the  advancement 
of  particular  purposes.  He  is  scornful  of  the  mere  Party 
man.  "  Hack,"  indeed,  is  the  word  he  contemptuously 
uses.  In  his  opinion  ordinary  politicians  are  but  gramo- 
phones which  mechanically  grind  out  echoes  of  the  catch 
cries  that  emanate  fron  the  Party  headquarters  or  the  Party 
newspapers.  Indeed,  the  Party  system  appears  to  him  a 
thing  eminently  absurd.  He  sees  nothing  in  it  but  three 
scolding  political  organizations  condemning  each  other's 
methods  and  belittling  each  other's  achievements,  bent 
solely  on  the  possession  of  office  with  its  attendant  prestige 
and  benefits.  In  his  self -righteousness  he  accounts  himself 
the  ideal  elector  who,  animated  by  a  high  sense  of  public 
duty,  refuses  to  espouse  any  side  in  the  Party  struggle, 
and,  taking  the  welfare  of  the  Nation  as  his  guiding  light, 
brings  free  and  reasoned  judgment  to  bear  upon  the  rival 
political  policies  at  issue  in  the  General  Election.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  staunch  Party  adherent  calls  him  a 
"  wobbler  " — a  sort  of  backboneless  creature  who  cannot 
stand  steadily  upon  his  legs,  much  less  four  square  to  all  the 
winds  that  blow,  and  who,  when  he  votes,  is  influenced  by 
some  petty  mood  of  the  moment. 

But  whatever  he  may  be — whether  the  idealistic  free 
and  enlightened  elector,  or  a  creature  of  unstable  mind, 
whether  he  represents  a  low  standard  of  political  intelligence, 
or  the  highest  form  of  integrity  applied  to  politics — un- 
doubtedly he  it  is  who  swings  the  electoral  pendulum.  He 
is  the  human  instrument  for  the  working  out  of  that  curious 
law  of  electioneering  by  which,  before  the  World  War,  with 
but  little  irregularity,  one  Party  succeeded  the  other  in 
ofiice,  since  the  first  really  democratic  extension  of  the 
franchise  by  Disraeli's  Reform  Act  of  1867,  when  the  principle 


22       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

of  household  suffrage  was  established.     The  "  wobblers  "  are 
not  organized.     They  have  no   newspapers.      No   common 
consciousness  of  similar  aims  unifies  or  unites  them.     They 
do  not  appear  upon  platforms  nor  in  audiences,  nor  do  they 
feel  impelled  to  write  to  the  Press.      They  keep  their  own 
counsel,  and  rarely  talk  politics  even  in  their  own  circles. 
They  are,  in  fact,  ignorant  of  each  other's  existence.     Yet 
their  political  influence  is  immense.     It  is  not  that  they 
succeed  in  having  themselves  largely  represented  in  Parlia- 
ment.    A  peer  who   sits   on  the   "  cross   benches  "   in  the 
House  of  Lords — right  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  unattached, 
between  the  Government  and  the  Opposition — is  the  closest 
analogue  of  the  "  wobbler  "  to  be  found  in  Parliament.     Nor 
are  they  successful  in  having  their  political  views  considered 
in  legislation  and  administration.     Indeed,  it  is  likely  that 
they  are  a  very  varied  lot  in  ideas,  sentiments,  and  tastes. 
Almost  invariably  non-politicians  are  dead  against  change. 
So  long  as  things  go  on  pretty  much  as  usual  they  are  content 
to  stand  aside.     But  if  it  were  possible  to  hold  a  convention 
of  "  wobblers,"  and  they  drew  up  a  political  programme, 
we  should  have,  no  doubt,  a  fearful  mixture  of  Toryism, 
Liberalism,   Socialism,   of  the  principles  of  free  trade  and 
tariff  reform,  of  open  doors  and  closed  ports,  of  loaves  big 
and  little,  of  nationalization  and  private  enterprise,  of  the 
whole  hog  or  none. 

The  power  which  is  wielded  by  this  silent  reserve  of 
voters,  as  opposed  to  the  crowd  who  belong  to  organizations, 
or  who  go  to  meetings  and  make  their  opinions  known,  is 
this — that  in  many  constituencies  where  the  steadfast  Liberal, 
Conservative,  and  Labour  supporters  are  evenly  balanced, 
they  exercise,  as  it  were,  the  casting  vote.  In  them  may 
be  said  to  lie  the  decision  of  the  fateful  question  of  the 
General  Election — Shall  the  Government  of  the  British 
Empire  be  Conservative  or  Liberal  or  Labour  for  a  term 
of  years  ?  In  the  mass  they  may  be  moved  by  opposing 
sentiments  and  motives,  they  may  be  pursuing  widely 
different  ends.  Many  of  them,  no  doubt,  are  of  the  kind 
who  can  only  support  a  cause  so  long  as  it  is  favoured  by 
fortune.  But,  as  a  rule,  they  are  friendly  disposed  towards 
the  "  outs."     "  Let  the  '  outs  '  have  a  turn  of  office,"  they 


WOOING   OF  THE   ELECTORS  23 

say,  as  they  place  their  cross  on  the  ballot  paper  in  the  poll- 
ing booth.     Thus  swings  the  electoral  pendulum  to  and  fro. 

Occasionally  there  is  a  wave  of  national  feeling — whether 
it  be  enthusiasm  for  the  new  cause,  or  absolute  weariness 
of  the  old,  which,  as  in  the  extraordinary  General  Election 
of  1906  that  brought  the  Liberals  back  to  power  after  many 
years  in  the  wilderness,  sweeps  over  the  country  like  a  tidal 
wave  overthrowing  the  barriers  set  up  by  the  Party  organi- 
zations and  obliterating  the  lines  of  orthodox  Party  politics. 
Then  it  is  that  the  non-political  electors  w^ho  do  not  trouble 
to  vote  on  ordinary  occasions  flock  to  the  polls  in  their 
hundreds  of  thousands,  that  numbers  of  voters  who  held 
their  opinions  weakly  go  over  to  the  other  side,  and  that  the 
candidates  of  the  Party  in  power  are  made  to  feel  the  full 
weight  of  their  combined  ^^Tath.  But  this  rarely  happens. 
In  the  periods  of  calm  which  more  often  mark  the  public 
life  of  England,  when  there  are  no  really  fundamental  or 
vital  differences  between  parties,  and  interest  in  politics  is, 
therefore,  at  a  low  ebb,  when  the  General  Election  means 
no  more  than  a  struggle  to  get  one  set  of  Ministers  out  and 
another  set  of  Ministers  in,  victory  for  Liberalism,  Con- 
servatism, or  Labour  depends  on  organization  and  persistent 
urging  during  the  actual  contest,  each  on  their  own  particular 
supporters,  to  fail  not,  on  their  Party  allegiance,  to  go  to 
the  polling  booths. 


The  contrast  between  elections  in  the  nineteenth  and  in 
the  twentieth  centuries  is  very  striking  and  interesting. 
We  see  the  good  effects  of  Party  in  sweeping  away  electoral 
corruption,  and  also  its  drawbacks  in  limiting  the  scope 
of  independent  opinion  and  character.  One  of  the  most 
remarkable  elections  ever  held  was  that  which  led  to  the 
return  of  John  Stuart  Mill  for  Westminster,  as  an  independent 
Member,  in  1865.  Mill's  views  were  uncommon  at  the  time. 
He  held  that  a  Member  of  Parliament  should  not  have  to 
incur  one  farthing  of  cost  for  undertaking  a  public  duty. 
The  expenses  of  an  election  ought,  in  his  opinion,  to  be 
borne  as  a  public  charge,  either  by  the  State  or  by  the 
locality.     Mill  also  contended  that  the  M.P.  should  not  be 


24       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

expected  to  give  any  of  his  time  or  labour  to  the  local 
interests.  He  declared  that  he  himself  had  no  desire  to 
enter  Parliament.  He  thought  he  could  do  more  as  a  writer 
in  the  way  of  propagating  his  opinions.  He  declined  to 
conduct  a  personal  canvass  of  the  constituency.  Mill  thus 
set  at  defiance  all  the  accepted  notions  of  right  electioneering. 
A  well-known  literary  man,  he  relates,  was  heard  to  say 
that  the  Almighty  Himself  would  have  no  chance  of  being 
elected  on  such  a  programme.  Yet  Mill  was  returned  by 
a  majority  of  some  hundreds  over  his  "  Conservative  com- 
petitor," as  he  calls  his  opponent.  And  all  his  expenses  were 
paid  by  the  constituency.  It  was  impossible  in  the  state 
of  Party  feeling  even  then  existing  that  so  independent  a 
Member  as  Mill  could  be  allowed  to  remain  very  long  in 
Parliament.  So  Mill  was  thrown  out  at  the  General  Election 
of  1868.  "  That  I  should  not  have  been  elected  at  all 
would  not  have  required  any  explanation,"  he  writes  in  his 
Autobiography.  "  What  excites  curiosity  is  that  I  should 
have  been  elected  the  first  time,  or,  having  been  elected 
then,  should  have  been  defeated  afterwards."  The  explana- 
tion was  that  his  writings  gave  as  much  confidence  to  Con- 
servatives as  they  did  to  the  Liberals  that  he  would  be  a 
supporter  of  their  cause.  The  reason  he  was  rejected  was  that 
in  Parliament  he  pleased  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

Macaulay,  like  Mill,  was  opposed  to  canvassing.  He 
declared  that  an  elector  who  surrendered  his  vote  to  sup- 
plication, or  to  the  caresses  of  his  baby,  forgot  his  duty 
as  much  as  if  he  sold  it  for  a  banknote.  In  his  contest  for 
the  representation  of  Leeds,  in  1832,  he  refrained  from 
asking  a  single  elector  personally  for  his  vote.     He  wrote  : 

The  suffrage  of  an  elector  ought  not  to  be  asked  or  to  be  given 
as  a  personal  favour.  It  is  as  much  for  the  interest  of  the  constituents 
to  choose  well,  as  it  can  be  for  the  interest  of  the  candidate  to  be 
chosen.  To  request  an  honest  man  to  vote  against  his  conscience  is 
an  insult.  The  practice  of  canvassing  is  quite  reasonable  under  a 
system  in  which  men  are  sent  to  Parliament  to  serve  themselves. 
It  is  the  height  of  absurdity  under  a  system  in  which  men  are  sent 
to  Parliament  to  serve  the  public. 

Gladstone,  on  the  other  hand,  nor  only  recognized  that 
canvassing   was   essential   to   successful   electioneering,   but 


WOOING   OF   THE   ELECTORS  25 

also  positively  enjoyed  it.  He,  too,  was  a  candidate  in  that 
General  Election  which  followed  the  passing  of  the  great 
Reform  Bill  of  1832.  He  once  said,  towards  the  end  of  his 
long  life,  that  in  all  the  stirring  and  momentous  political 
scenes  in  which  he  had  been  an  actor — fighting  for  a  seat 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  making  Cabinets,  taking  part 
in  historic  decisions  on  peace  and  war — there  was  nothing 
to  compare  for  excitement  with  his  first  contest  for  Newark 
in  1832,  out  of  which  he  came  victorious.  There  were 
2,000  houses  in  the  borough.  It  was  then  the  custom 
for  the  candidates  in  all  elections  personally  to  visit  every 
house,  whether  occupied  by  a  votor  or  not,  to  solicit  the 
elector  for  his  vote  and  the  non-elector  for  his  or  her  influence. 
Gladstone  went  five  times  to  every  house  in  Newark,  thus 
making  10,000  calls  in  all.  In  the  twentieth  century 
most  candidates  are  disposed  to  dispense  with  canvassing 
altogether.  It  must  be  repugnant  to  sensitive  souls,  or  to 
those  with  a  quick  response  to  the  ridiculous,  to  have  to  go 
from  house  to  house  following  the  traditionally  seductive 
ways  of  the  aspirant  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons 
Perhaps  the  prettiest  compliments  that  have  ever  been  paid', 
outside  those  of  the  lover  to  his  mistress,  have  been  paid 
by  candidates  canvassing  electors.  Kissing  even  played  a 
leading  part  in  the  art  in  the  gallant  daj^s  of  old.  The 
custom  had  its  drawbacks.  Did  not  the  eloquent  auctioneer 
who  offered  for  sale  the  notorious  borough  of  Gatton,  in 
Surrey,  with  its  estate  and  mansion  as  well  as  the  power 
of  electing  two  M.P.'s,  set  out,  among  its  advantages  :  "  No 
claims  of  insolent  electors  to  evade  ;  no  impossible  promises 
to  make  ;  no  tinkers'  wives  to  kiss  "  !  So  kissing  by  candi- 
dates  has  fallen  into  disfavour,  and  the  most  candidates  / 
are  expected  to  do  is  to  pinch  the  cheeks  of  babies  or  chuck 
them  under  the  chin,  in  the  hope  of  inducing  the  parents 
to  recognize  the  merits  of  the  Unionist  or  Liberal  or  Labour 
cause.  Perhaps  canvassing  ought  to  be  included  in  the 
practices  which  are  declared  by  statute  to  be  illegal  at 
elections.  But  its  effect  on  the  issue  of  the  contest,  especially 
in  constituencies  where  the  Parties  are  rather  evenly  divided, 
is  sometimes  decisive.  The  feeling  of  many  electors  is  that 
in  their  votes  they  possess  a  favour  to  bestow.     They  like 


26      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

to  be  asked  for  it,  and  the  candidate  who  comes  to  their 
houses,  hat  in  hand,  soHciting  their  support,  usually  gets  it, 
at  least  from  the  non-party  electors  or  the  "  wobblers." 

In  days  gone  by,  even  candidates  with  the  highest  sense 
of  virtue  and  honour,  public  and  private,  had  to  woo  the 
electors  by  a  lavish  expenditure  of  money.     Lord  Cochrane 
stood  as  a  Whig  for  Honiton  at  a  by-election  in  the  spring 
of  1806  against  Augustus  Cavendish  Bradshaw,  who  sought 
"  a    renewal    of  the    confidence    of  the    constituency "    on 
accepting  a  place  in  the  Tory  Government.     Bradshaw  had 
paid  five  guineas  a  vote  at  the  former  election,  and  on  this 
occasion  expected  to  get  returned  unopposed  at  the  reduced 
rate  of  two  guineas  ;  but  on  the  appearance  of  Cochrane 
in  the  field  he  was  compelled  to  raise  his  bounty  to  the  old 
figure.     "  You  need  not  ask  me,  my  lord,  who  I  vote  for," 
said  a  burgess  to  Cochrane  ;  "  I  always  vote  for  Mister  Most." 
The  gallant  seaman,  however,  refused  to  bribe  at  all,  and  got 
well  beaten  in  consequence.     How  he  turned  his  defeat  to 
account   makes   an   amusing   story.     After  the   election   he 
sent  the  bellman  round  the  town,  directing  those  who  had 
voted  for  him  to  go  to  his  agent,  Mr.  Townsend,  and  receive 
ten  guineas.     The  novelty  of  a  defeated  candidate  paying 
double   the   current   price    of    a   vote — or,    indeed,    paying 
anything  at  all — made  a  great  sensation.     Cochrane  states 
in  his  Autobiography  of  a  Seaman  that  his  agent  assured 
him  he  could  have  secured  his  return  for  less  money.     As 
the   popular   voice   was   in   his    favour   a   trifling   judicious 
expenditure   would   have   turned   the   scale.     "  I   told   Mr. 
Townsend,"   he   writes,    "  that   such   payment   would   have 
been    bribery,    which    would    not    have   accorded    with    my 
character   as   a    reformer   of    abuses — a    declaration   which 
seemed  highly  to  amuse  him.     Notwithstanding  the  explana- 
tion that  the  ten  guineas  was  paid  as  a  reward  for  having 
withstood  the  influence  of  bribery,  the  impression  produced 
on  the  electoral  mind  by  such  unlooked-for  liberality  was 
simply  this — that  if  I  gave  ten  guineas  for  being  beaten, 
my  opponent  had  not  paid  half  enough  for  being  elected  : 
a  conclusion  which,  by  a  similar  process  of  reasoning,  was 
magnified  into  the  conviction  that  each  of  his  voters  had 
been   cheated   out   of  five   pounds   five."     In   the   October 


WOOING   OF   THE   ELECTORS  27 

following  there  was  a  General  Election.  Cochrane  was 
again  a  candidate  for  Honiton,  and,  although  he  had  said 
nothing  about  paying  for  his  votes,  was  returned  at  the 
head  of  the  poll.  The  burgesses  were  convinced  that  on 
this  occasion  he  was  "  Mister  Most."  Surely  it  was  impossible 
to  conceive  any  limits  to  the  bounty  of  a  successful  candidate 
who  in  defeat  was  so  generous  as  voluntarily  to  pay  ten 
guineas  a  vote  !  They  got — not  a  penny  !  Cochrane  told 
them  that  bribery  was  against  his  principles.  What  the 
trustful  electors  said  about  their  representative  would  not 
bear  repetition  here.  But  there  was  another  dissolution  a 
few  months  afterwards,  and  Cochrane  did  not  dare  to  face 
outraged  Honiton. 


It  was  not  often,  however,  that  burgesses  were  outwitted 
by  a  candidate.  A  story  that  is  told  of  the  Irish  borough 
of  Cashel  shows  how  the  voters  usually  scored.  The  electors, 
locally  known  as  "  Commoners,"  fourteen  in  number,  were 
notoriously  corrupt,  and  always  sold  their  votes  to  the  highest 
bidder.  It  was  for  this  constituency,  by  the  way,  that  that 
very  prim  and  straight-laced  man,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  was 
first  returned  to  Parliament  in  1809.  The  usual  price  of  a 
v^ote  in  Cashel  was  £20.  The  popular  candidate  at  one 
election,  anxious  to  win  the  seat  honestly  and  not  to 
spend  a  penny  in  corruption,  got  the  parish  priest  to 
preach  a  sermon  at  Mass,  on  the  Sunday  before  the  polling, 
against  the  immorality  of  trafficking  in  the  franchise.  The 
good  man,  indeed,  went  so  far  in  the  course  of  his  impressive 
sermon  as  to  declare  that  those  who  betrayed  a  public  trust 
by  selling  their  votes  would  go  to  hell.  Next  day  the 
candidate  met  one  of  the  electors  and  asked  what  was  the 
effect  of  Sunday's  sermon.  "  Your  honour,"  said  he,  "  votes 
have  risen.  We  always  got  £20  for  a  vote  before  we  knew 
it  was  a  sin  to  sell  it  ;  but  as  his  reverence  tells  us  that 
we  will  be  damned  for  selling  our  votes,  we  can't  for  the 
future  afford  to  take  less  than  £40."  The  borough  was 
ultimately  disfranchised  for  corruption. 

Bribery  did  not  always  mean  the  direct  purchase  of 
votes    for    money    down.     Many    whimsical    dodges    were 


28      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

adopted  to  influence  voters  without  running  any  great 
risk  from  the  law.  Cheap  articles  were  bought  from  the 
voters  at  fancy  prices,  or  a  valuable  commodity  was  sold 
to  them  at  a  fraction  of  its  value.  At  an  election  at 
Sudbury  in  1826  a  candidate  purchased  from  a  greengrocer 
two  cabbages  for  £lO  and  a  plate  of  gooseberries  for 
£25.  He  paid  the  butcher,  the  grocer,  the  baker,  the 
tailor,  the  printer,  the  billsticker,  at  equally  extravagant 
rates.  At  Great  Marlow  an  elector  got  a  sow  and  a  litter 
of  nine  for  a  penny.  Candidates  also  suddenly  developed 
hobbies  for  buying  birds,  animals,  and  articles  of  various 
kinds  which  caught  their  eye  during  the  house-to-house 
canvass.  Some  were  enthusiastic  collectors  of  old  almanacs  ; 
others  were  passionately  fond  of  children's  white  mice, 
"  Name  your  price,"  said  the  candidate.  "  Is  a  pound  too 
much  ?  "  replied  the  voter.  "  Nonsense,  man,"  said  the 
candidate ;  "  here  are  two  guineas."  Rivers  of  beer  were 
also  set  flowing  in  the  constituencies.  The  experience  of 
the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  (the  philanthropist  and  friend  of 
the  working  classes)  was  common.  As  Lord  Ashley  he 
contested  Dorset  in  the  anti-Reform  interest  at  the  General 
Election  of  1831,  which  followed  the  rejection  of  the  first 
Reform  Bill,  and  was  defeated.  His  expenses  amounted 
to  £15,600,  of  which  £12,525  was  paid  to  the  owners  of 
inns  and  public-houses  for  refreshments — "  free  drinks  "  to 
the  people.  In  those  days  some  of  the  most  respectable  as 
well  as  renowned  of  parliamentarians  got  their  chance  by 
means  of  a  judicious  distribution  of  five-pound  notes  among 
the  electors. 

When  bribery  was  thus  avowed  and  flagrant,  no  limit 
could  be  placed  to  the  possible  cost  of  a  seat  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Success  was  won,  or  defeat  sustained,  in  many 
an  election  at  the  price  of  bankruptcy  and  ruin.  The  most 
expensive  contest  in  the  annals  of  electioneering  was  the 
fight  in  1807  for  the  representation  of  Yorkshire.  The 
candidates  were  Lord  Milton,  son  of  Earl  Fitzwilliam  (Whig)  ; 
the  Hon.  Henry  Lascellcs,  son  of  Lord  Harewood  (Tory)  ; 
and  William  Wilbcrforce,  the  famous  advocate  of  the  abolition 
of  slavery  (Independent).  The  poll  was  taken  in  the  Castle 
yard  at  York  in  thirteen  booths,  which,  in  accordance  with 


WOOING    OF   THE   ELECTORS  29 

the  existing  law,  were  kept  open  from  9  a.m.  to  5  p.m.  for 
fifteen  days.  Wilberforee  and  Milton  were  returned.  The 
total  number  of  electors  polled  was  23,007,  and  the  three 
candidates  spent  between  them  £300,000,  or  about  £13  for 
each  vote  polled.  Wilberforee's  bill  ran  into  £58,000,  which 
had  to  be  defrayed  by  public  subscription.  A  good  deal 
of  this  money  went  into  the  pockets  of  the  electors.  There- 
fore it  is  hardly  surprising  to  read  in  the  debates  on  the 
Reform  Bill  of  1832  the  contention  advanced  that  a  seat 
in  the  House  was  private  property,  that  the  possession  of  a 
vote  was  a  source  of  income,  and  consequently  that  to  take 
one  or  the  other  from  a  man  without  compensation,  by  the 
abolition  of  small  boroughs  and  fancy  franchises,  was  as  much 
robbery  as  to  deprive  a  fundholder  of  his  dividends,  or  a 
landlord  of  his  rents. 


All  this  but  emphasizes  the  purity  of  the  wooing  of  the 
electors  to-day.  The  various  stringent  Acts  against  bribery 
and  corruption  carried  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  have  not  been  passed  in  vain.  In  1854  bribery 
was  made  a  criminal  offence  by  the  Corrupt  Practices  Pre- 
vention Act.  Election  petitions  by  defeated  candidates 
claiming  seats  on  the  ground  that  there  had  been  corrupt 
practices  were  formerly  tried  by  committees  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  Often  the  decisions  were  partisan,  and  directly 
in  the  teeth  of  the  evidence.  Yet  the  House  of  Commons  for 
centuries  so  jealously  guarded  its  own  jurisdiction  over  all 
matters  relating  to  the  election  of  its  members  that  it  rejected 
proposals  of  a  judicial  tribunal.  At  length  in  1868  the  Parlia- 
mentary Elections  Act  was  passed,  and  since  then  two  Judges 
of  the  King's  Bench  Division  try  petitions,  and  report  the 
result  to  the  Speaker.  After  the  General  Election  of  1880 
there  were  no  fewer  than  ninety-five  petitions  impunging 
returns  on  various  grounds,  including  bribery,  intimidation, 
personation  of  dead  or  absent  voters,  and  most  of  them 
were  sustained.  After  the  General  Election  of  1885  there 
was  not  a  single  petition.  Between  these  electoral  contests 
a  statute  was  passed — the  Corrupt  and  Illegal  Practices 
Prevention  Act  of  1883 — which  has  done  much  to   make 


30      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

parliamentary  elections  pure.  Its  main  purpose  was  the 
fixing  of  a  maximum  scale  of  electioneering  expenditure, 
varying  in  amount  according  to  the  character  and  extent 
of  the  constituency,  and  each  candidate  was  required  to 
make  a  statement  of  his  expenses  to  the  returning  officer 
within  thirty-five  days  after  the  contest.  The  expenditure 
of  an  election — other  than  the  personal  expenses  of  the 
candidate  and  the  returning  officers'  charges — was  limited 
by  this  Act  in  England  and  Scotland  to  £350  for  the  first 
2,000  electors  in  boroughs,  and  £650  for  the  first  2,000 
electors  in  counties,  with  accretions  of  £30  in  the  case  of 
boroughs,  and  £60  in  the  case  of  counties,  for  every  additional 
1,000  electors.  The  personal  expenses  of  a  candidate  were 
confined  to  £100.  The  General  Election  of  1880 — the  last 
election  in  which  expenditure  within  the  law  was  practically 
unlimited,  and,  as  the  disclosures  in  the  hearing  of  the 
petitions  showed,  was  most  excessive — cost  the  candidates 
over  £2,000,000,  or  about  15s.  for  each  vote  polled.  The 
General  Election  of  1885,  the  first  held  under  the  Corrupt 
Practices  Act  of  1883,  cost  only  £1,026,646,  or  4s.  5d.  per 
vote.  The  tendency  of  the  expenditure  is  still  downwards. 
Under  the  Representation  of  the  People  Act,  1918,  the 
expenses  of  a  candidate  must  not  exceed  an  amount  equal 
to  7d.  for  each  elector  on  the  register,  in  the  case  of  counties, 
and  5d.  in  the  case  of  boroughs,  exclusive  of  personal 
expenses.  The  fee  paid  to  the  election  agent  must  not 
exceed  £75  in  counties  and  £50  in  boroughs. 

Still,  the  question  is  sometimes  asked  in  all  seriousness  : 
Is  electioneering  really  any  purer  now  than  it  was  in  the 
days  before  the  first  Reform  Act  ?  It  is  admitted  that 
seats  in  the  House  of  Commons  are  no  longer  openly  pur- 
chased, that  individual  voters  are  no  longer  directly  bribed. 
But  it  is  said  that  the  old  blunt  and  barefaced  forms  of 
corruption  have  simply  given  place  to  newer  and  subtler 
methods  of  bribery,  which  are  just  as  dishonourable  to  those 
who  give  and  those  who  take.  A  candidate  does  not  now 
buy  a  constituency  ;  he  "  nurses  "  it.  In  other  words,  he 
tries  to  secure  the  goodwill  and  support  of  the  electors 
by  subscriptions  and  donations  for  various  local  objects. 
Against  this  practice,  with  its  many  by-ways  of  expenditure, 


WOOING   OF   THE   ELECTORS  31 

there  is  no  law.  The  objects  for  which  money  is  thus  spent 
divide  themselves  into  two  classes — religion  and  philan- 
thropy, sport  and  amusements.  Is  a  peal  of  bells  required 
for  the  parish  church  ?  Does  the  chapel  aspire  to  a  steeple  ? 
Is  a  billiard-table  wanted  by  the  young  men's  society  ? 
Are  coal  and  blankets  needed  by  the  poor  during  the  winter  ? 
The  open-handed  candidate  is  only  waiting  for  a  hint  in  order 
to  supply  the  necessary  cheque.  Then  there  are  football 
and  cricket  clubs  to  which  the  candidate  is  expected  to  give 
financial  assistance.  And  give  it  he  does  gladly,  for,  as 
he  says,  it  is  the  duty  of  public  men  to  encourage  national 
sports  and  pastimes.  If  the  stories  one  hears  be  true,  it 
would  seem,  indeed,  as  if  the  old  tradition  that  a  vote  is  a 
saleable  commodity,  and  that  parliamentary  elections  are 
held,  not  so  much  that  the  country  may  be  governed  in 
accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  people  as  that  the  con- 
stituency may  profit  financially  in  one  way  or  another  by 
the  return  of  a  representative,  still  to  some  extent  survives. 
It  is  even  said  that  impudent  individual  demands  are  made 
on  the  purse  of  the  candidate.  They  range  from  five  shillings 
for  getting  a  voter's  clothes  or  tools  out  of  pawn  to  a  five- 
pound  note  for  sending  an  invalid  supporter  to  the  seaside. 

But  these  attempts  to  blackmail  the  candidate  are, 
when  all  is  said  and  done,  exceedingly  rare.  According  as 
the  franchise  has  been  broadened,  as  the  property  qualifica- 
tion for  the  vote  has  been  reduced,  the  purer  have  elections 
become.  This  is  due  to  some  extent  partly  to  the  fear  of 
the  law  against  corrupt  and  illegal  practices,  and  partly  to 
the  size  of  the  constituencies,  which  are  now  so  large  that 
the  purchase  of  a  sufficient  number  of  votes  to  decide  the 
issue  is  beyond  the  capacity  of  most  purses.  But  I  think  it 
is  more  due  to  the  sturdy  pride  and  self-respect  of  the  new 
electors,  the  working  classes  generally,  as  well  as  their  sense 
of  public  duty,  which  have  put  an  end  to  the  old  petitional 
extension  of  hands  for  doles  in  return  for  votes.  Happily, 
there  is  no  gainsaying  the  seriousness  and  responsibility 
with  which,  on  the  whole,  the  franchise  is  now  exercised. 
Taking  them  all  in  all,  the  voters  go  to  the  polling  booths 
animated  by  a  fine  public  spirit — respect  for  the  Constitution, 
devotion  to  the  State — which  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  is 


32      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

aroused  and  kept  purely  aflame  by  their  different  political 
convictions,  and  without  a  thought  of  individual  gain. 

Moreover,  Party  organization  makes  a  representative 
largely  independent,  not  only  of  the  local  whims  and  caprices 
of  his  constituency,  but  of  any  section  of  the  electors  who 
may  look  for  favours  in  return  for  their  support.  The 
representative  may  occasionally  be  hard  pressed  by  local 
interests,  but  as  a  rule  these  are  regarded  as  subsidiary  to 
Party  considerations,  to  the  supreme  purpose  of  each  Party 
to  obtain  control  of  the  machinery  of  Government.  There- 
fore the  secret  of  success  in  the  wooing  of  the  electors  to-day 
is  not  the  distribution  of  blankets  or  billiard-tables.  It 
might  perhaps  be  said  that  it  is  not  even  wit,  wisdom  and 
eloquence  in  the  candidate — though,  of  course,  these  posses- 
sions greatly  count — much  less  complete  independence  of 
Party  in  public  affairs.  It  is  adherence  to  one  Party  ticket 
or  the  other  ;  it  is  agreement  with  the  Party  opinions  of  the 
majority  of  the  constituency.  The  victorious  candidate  does 
not  always  owe  his  election  to  his  personal  success  in  turning 
the  majority  of  the  voters  round  to  his  side.  As  a  rule,  his 
election  means  simply  that  he  has  had  the  good  fortune 
to  present  himself  to  a  constituency  which,  in  the  main,  was 
already  in  agreement  with  his  political  opinions.  And 
instead  of  five-pound  notes,  he  is  expected  to  distribute 
only  Party  promises  and  pledges. 


CHAPTER   III 

A   NEW    PARLIAMENT   IN    THE    MAKING 


*'  Register,  register,  register  !  "  Such  was  the  emphasized 
advice  which  Sir  Robert  Peel  gave  to  his  Tory  followers 
so  long  ago  as  1837.  At  that  time  Party  organization  as 
we  now  understand  it  was  unknown,  and  each  elector  had  to 
see  for  himself  that  he  got  on  the  register.  The  motto  of 
all  political  Parties  in  these  days  of  thorough  organization 
is  more  than  ever,  "  Register,  register,  register  !  "  For 
when  the  General  Election  comes  the  fate  of  Parties  is  decided 
beforehand  by  the  extent  to  which  their  respective  adherents 
have  got  on  the  register  of  voters.  The  Party  complexion 
of  the  successful  candidate  in  any  constituency  is  always 
a  reflection  of  the  predominant  political  colour  of  the  register 
of  voters. 

The  preparation  of  the  register  of  voters,  which  was 
first  provided  for  by  the  Reform  Act  of  1832,  is  the  duty  of 
the  local  authorities,  and  is  discharged,  under  the  Repre- 
sentation of  the  People  Act,  1918,  at  the  public  expense, 
one-half  being  paid  out  of  the  local  rates  and  the  other 
out  of  the  National  Exchequer.  The  registration  officers 
are  the  town  clerk  in  borough  divisions,  and  the  clerk  of 
the  county  council  in  county  divisions.  The  qualifications 
for  a  vote  are,  for  men,  twenty-one  years  of  age  and  six 
months'  residence  as  a  householder  or  lodger,  or  occupation 
of  business  premises  ;  and  for  women,  thirty  years  of  age, 
possessing  herself  the  local  government  franchise  by  reason 
of  six  months'  ownership  or  tenancy  of  land  or  premises 
in  her  own  right,  or  being  the  wife  of  a  local  government 
elector.  Voters'  lists  are  first  compiled  by  the  registration 
VOL.   I.  3  ^^ 


34      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

officers  from  the  rate-books,  supplemented  by  a  house-to- 
house  inquiry  to  get  the  names  of  householders  whose  rates 
are  paid  through  the  landlord  and  of  persons  qualified  as 
wives  or  lodgers.  Printed  copies  of  these  provisional  or 
draft  lists  are  exhibited  for  public  reference  in  the  town  or 
county  halls,  post  offices,  public  libraries,  and  at  the  doors 
of  churches  and  chapels  in  each  constituency.  This  is  done 
to  afford  all  concerned  an  opportunity  of  seeing  whether 
they  are  on  the  lists,  and,  if  necessary,  of  giving  notice 
to  the  returning  officer  of  claims  to  make  corrections  or 
additions. 

It  is  curious  what  little  attention  is  given  to  these  huge 
and  unwieldy  bundles  of  printed  matter.  Few  voters  are 
moved  to  examine  them.  Small  boys  take  a  real  interest 
in  them,  and  that  is  usually  of  an  impish  and  destructive 
kind.  Otherwise  the  lists  are  too  often  left  neglected. 
The  average  man  apparently  never  troubles  himself  about 
his  vote  until  a  contest  arises  in  his  constituency  or  the 
General  Election  approaches.  There  seems  to  be  in  his 
mind  the  supposition  that  it  is  the  duty  of  some  person  or 
some  body — he  frequently  knows  not  who  or  what — to  see 
that  he  shall  be  in  the  position  to  vote  when  the  time  comes 
for  the  exercise  of  this  privilege  of  his  citizenship.  And  in 
a  sense  the  average  man  is  right.  There  is  a  person  keenly 
anxious  that  he  should  get  the  vote  to  which  he  is  entitled — 
the  local  agent  of  the  Conservative,  Liberal,  or  Labour 
Party. 

To  this  most  important  branch  of  political  work  the 
central  offices  of  the  great  political  organizations  give  the 
closest  attention.  At  one  time  large  sums  of  money  were 
spent  in  registration,  provided  partly  from  the  funds  of 
the  central  offices,  and  partly  by  the  sitting  Members,  to  main- 
tain their  interest,  as  it  was  called,  or  by  prospective  candi- 
dates of  other  politics  who  were  "  nursing  "  constituencies. 
No  sooner  did  a  stranger  come  to  reside  in  a  constituency 
— especially  where  Parties  are  somewhat  evenly  balanced, 
and  where,  in  consequence,  the  rival  Party  organizations 
were  highly  active — than  he  was  waited  upon  by  the  Party 
canvassers  to  ascertain  his  political  opinions.  The  local 
organization  of  the  Party  to  which  he  gave  adhesion  saw 


A  NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING     35 

that  his  name  duly  appeared  on  the  register  of  voters.  That 
is  so  to  some  extent  yet,  though  it  is  not  carried  to  the  same 
degree  of  Party  competition  as  formerly.  The  Representa- 
tion of  the  People  Act,  1918,  lifted  registration  above  being 
a  mere  wrangle  between  rival  political  agents  over  the  body 
of  the  claimant  to  a  vote,  by  establishing  the  principle  that 
it  was  the  business  of  the  State  to  see  that  every  qualified 
person  was  put  on  the  register  of  voters,  despite  the  dis- 
franchising activity  of  the  Party  agents  and  the  ignorance 
or  apathy  of  the  individual  citizen.  Each  Party  now  confines 
its  operations  to  seeing  that  qualified  voters  of  its  own 
political  colour  are  put  on  the  register  and  kept  there.  And 
it  must  be  said  that  as  the  result  of  their  competing  watch- 
fulness a  register  as  complete  and  accurate  as  possible  is 
usually  obtained. 

The  Representation  of  the  People  Act,  1918,  also  reformed 
the  procedure  of  the  courts  for  correcting  and  amending 
the  voters'  lists  and  passing  them  finally  as  the  register  of 
voters.  Formerly  these  courts  were  presided  over  by  revising 
barristers  who  were  lawyers  of  not  less  than  seven  years' 
standing  appointed  by  the  senior  Judge  of  the  summer  assizes 
for  the  constituencies  within  his  circuit,  and  were  paid 
200  guineas  each  for  deciding  claims  and  objections.  The 
political  Parties  used  to  be  represented  in  the  revision 
courts  by  their  agents,  who  left  nothing  undone  to  put 
on  the  register  as  many  as  possible  of  their  own  supporters, 
and  to  put  off  as  many  as  possible  of  their  opponents.  Since 
1918  the  revision  of  the  lists  has  been  done  by  the  town 
clerks,  or  the  clerks  of  the  county  councils,  as  registration 
officers.  I  saw  some  of  the  reformed  revision  courts  at 
work  in  London  for  the  first  time  in  1918.  The  procedure 
was  quite  simple.  The  town  clerk  sat  at  the  head  of  the 
table  with  the  voters'  lists  before  him,  and  the  overseer 
by  his  side  to  help  him  in  his  duties.  At  the  table  also  were 
the  agents  of  the  local  Party  organizations.  The  lists  were 
gone  through.  Errors  in  the  spelling  of  names  or  the  num- 
bering of  residences  were  corrected  ;  duplicate  entries  were 
struck  out.  It  was  all  done  smoothly  and  rapidly.  There 
was  none  of  the  old  contention  between  the  Party  agents 
for  the  insertion  of  this  name  or  the  omission  of  that  which 


36      THE   PAGEANT   OF  PARLIAMENT 

I  frequently  had  to  listen  to  in  the  old  revision  courts. 
Claims  were  numerous,  and  the  disposition  was  to  allow 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  objections  were  few,  and 
were  mostly  formal.  When  the  full  register  of  voters  for 
each  division  is  printed  a  copy  is  to  be  seen  and  consulted 
at  the  office  of  the  registration  officer  of  the  division — the 
town  hall  or  the  county  council  hall.  The  part  of  the  register 
relating  to  each  unit  of  the  division,  ward,  or  district  is 
hung  in  local  post  offices,  the  public  libraries  and  church 
porches. 


Everything  is  now  in  readiness  for  the  dissolution  of 
Parliament.  The  two  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons  are 
dissolved  by  Royal  Proclamation  issued  by  the  King  "  by 
and  with  the  advice  of  Our  Privy  Council  "  (which  means 
the  Ministers)  and  under  the  Great  Seal  of  the  United  King- 
dom. In  order  to  keep  the  existence  of  Parliament  as 
nearly  continuous  as  possible,  a  new  Parliament  is  summoned 
at  the  same  moment  that  the  old  is  dissolved.  Hence  in 
the  Royal  Proclamation  the  Sovereign  declares  his  desire 
to  meet  as  soon  as  may  be  his  people,  and  to  have  their 
advice  in  Parliament,  and  accordingly  requires  the  Lord 
Chancellors  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  to  issue  forthwith 
the  writs  for  causing  the  Lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and 
Commons  who  are  to  serve  in  the  said  Parliament  to  be 
duly  returned  and  give  their  attendance.  Thereupon  the 
machinery  of  a  General  Election  is  put  into  motion  by  the 
Clerk  of  the  Crown  in  Chancery  (an  officer  of  the  Crown  in 
attendance  upon  the  Lord  Chancellor  in  Parliament,  with 
offices  in  the  precincts  of  the  House  of  Lords),  and  does 
not  cease  working  until  the  two  Houses  are  again  constituted 
and  in  session. 

Various  kinds  of  writs  are  issued  from  the  Crown  Office. 
There  are  the  writs  of  summons  to  attend  in  Parliament, 
which  are  sent  to  the  temporal  and  spiritual  peers.  There 
are  three  classes  of  peerages  which  carry  an  hereditary 
right  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords — peerages  of  England 
created  before  1707 ;  peerages  of  Great  Britain,  created 
between  the  Union  with  Scotland  in   X707  and  the  Union 


A   NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING     37 

with  Ireland  in  1801  ;  and  peerages  of  the  United  Kingdom 
created  since  1801.  The  twenty-six  Bishops  who  hold 
peerages  by  right  of  office  and  the  twenty-eight  Irish  repre- 
sentative peers  who  are  elected  for  life  by  the  peerage  of 
Ireland  also  receive  writs,  but  sixteen  Scottish  representative 
peers  elected  for  each  Parliament  by  the  peerage  of  Scotland 
assembled  at  Holyrood  House,  Edinburgh,  do  not.  However, 
the  writs  with  which  we  are  now  more  particularly  con- 
cerned are  those  for  the  election  of  the  Commons  of  Great 
Britain.  They  are  sent  by  the  Clerk  of  the  Crown  to  the 
returning  officers  of  the  constituencies — in  county  areas  the 
sheriffs,  in  urban  areas  the  mayor  or  chairman  of  the  borough 
council — commanding  them,  in  the  name  of  the  King,  to 
"  cause  election  to  be  made  according  to  law  "  of  Members 
to  sei-ve  in  the  new  Parliament  ;  and  "  to  cause  the  names 
of  such  Members,  when  so  elected,  whether  they  be  present 
or  absent,  to  be  certified  to  us  in  Our  Chancery  without 
delay."  The  writs  for  a  General  Election  are,  in  fact,  always 
prepared  in  the  Crown  Office  and  ready  to  be  issued  in 
case  there  might  be  any  sudden  dissolution  of  Parliament 
before  it  has  run  its  prescribed  term  of  five  years.  They 
are  printed  on  parchment  in  imitation  copper-plate  hand- 
writing, with  blanks  for  names  and  dates  to  be  filled  in 
by  a  penman,  and  are  oblong  in  shape,  about  15  inches 
across  by  12  inches  in  length. 

Years  ago  the  transmission  of  the  writs  was  a  dignified 
and  onerous  and  also  a  profitable  duty.  Messengers  of  the 
Great  Seal,  as  they  were  called,  were  despatched  through 
the  country  post-haste  with  the  writs  for  personal  delivery 
to  the  returning  officers,  and  they  collected  five  guineas 
for  a  writ  for  a  borough  and  ten  guineas  for  a  writ  for  a 
city  or  a  county.  Under  this  system  grave  irregularities 
prevailed.  Candidates  schemed  to  get  early  possession  of 
the  writs  in  order  to  forestal,  by  hastening  the  election, 
any  threatened  opposition  ;  and  the  Messengers  of  the  Great 
Seal,  it  was  said,  were  disposed  to  give  a  writ  to  the  candi- 
date who  would  pay  most  for  it.  But  an  Act  passed  in 
1813  provided  for  the  conveyance  and  delivery  of  the  writs 
through  the  prosaic  but  purer  agency  of  the  Post  Office. 
Precautions  are  taken  to  avoid  any  chance  of  their  going 


38       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

astray.  They  are  placed  in  envelopes  of  strong  cartridge 
paper  with  a  lining  of  glazed  calico,  each  addressed  to  the 
respective  returning  officer,  and  are  conveyed  to  the  General 
Post  Office,  London,  by  one  of  the  clerks  of  the  Crown 
Office,  designated  for  this  occasion,  "  Messenger  of  the  Great 
Seal,"  who  receives  from  an  official  appointed  by  the  Post- 
master-General a  written  acknowledgment  of  the  delivery 
of  his  precious  charge.  The  writs  are  then  despatched 
through  the  first  available  post  as  registered  letters.  With 
each  there  is  sent  an  injunction  to  the  postmaster  of  the 
place  where  the  returning  officer  resides  to  have  the  writ 
safely  and  speedily  delivered,  and  to  get  a  receipt  from 
the  returning  officer.  This  receipt  the  local  postmaster 
transmits  to  the  Postmaster-General,  who  in  turn  has  the 
particulars  entered  in  a  book  which  is  available  for  inspection 
by  any  person  interested.  In  what  is  known  as  the  London 
Metropolitan  area,  extending  into  four  counties — Middlesex, 
Surrey,  Kent  and  Essex — personal  service  of  the  writs  to  the 
returning  officers  of  the  divisions  by  the  Messenger  of  the 
Great  Seal  in  still  in  vogue,  the  messenger  travelling  in  a 
motor-car  instead  of  on  horseback,  and  demanding  no  fees 
for  his  services. 

Nomination  day  is  the  same  in  all  constituencies,  as 
provided  by  the  Representation  of  the  People  Act,  1918. 
On  the  day  appointed,  the  eighth  day  after  the  date  of  the 
Royal  Proclamation,  the  returning  officer  attends  at  the 
municipal  buildings,  or  the  courthouse,  within  certain  fixed 
hours — usually  from  10  a.m.  till  noon — to  receive  nomina- 
tions of  candidates.  The  nomination  paper  sets  out  the 
name,  abode,  profession  or  calling  of  the  candidate,  and 
the  names  and  addresses  of  two  registered  electors,  who 
propose  and  second  him,  and  of  eight  other  assenting  bur- 
gesses. Each  candidate  provides  himself  with  several 
nomination  papers,  filled  up  by  electors  from  various  classes 
or  sections  of  the  constituency,  with  a  view  to  show  the 
representative  character  of  his  supporters,  and  also  to  secure 
himself  from  the  risk  of  the  nomination  being  declared  null 
and  void  by  the  returning  officer  owing  to  some  irregularity 
in  the  original  nomination  paper.  The  Ballot  Act  requires 
that  the  nomination  paper  must  be  handed  in  to  the  returning 


A  NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING     39 

officer  by  the  candidate  personally,  or  by  his  proposer  or 
seconder.  At  one  election  the  nomination  paper  was  given 
in  by  the  agent  of  the  candidate,  and  this  was  held  to  be 
fatal  to  the  nomination.  It  was  a  small  technical  point, 
and  since  then  it  has  come  to  be  understood  generally  by 
agents  of  all  Parties  that  no  advantage  is  to  be  taken  of 
such  slips  or  oversights. 

8 

Membership  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  remarkably 
free  and  unrestricted.  Under  the  American  Constitution  it 
is  necessary  for  a  Member  of  Congress — whether  he  sits  in 
the  House  of  Representatives  or  in  the  Senate — to  reside 
in  the  state  by  which  he  is  returned.  There  is  no  such 
rule  in  the  case  of  Members  of  Parliament.  It  was  provided 
by  a  statute  of  Plenry  V  that  "  knights  of  the  shires  and 
citizens  and  burgesses  should  be  dwelling  and  resident  " 
within  the  constituencies  they  represented.  But  this  resi- 
dential qualification  had  been  evaded  or  fallen  into  disuse 
long  before  1620,  when  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons 
recommended  its  abolition.  It  was  not  formally  repealed, 
however,  until  1774.  The  Act  (14  Geo.  Ill,  C.  58)  declared 
that  the  laws  as  to  residence,  passed  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
"  have  been  found  by  long  usage  to  be  unnecessary  and  have 
become  obsolete "  ;  and  in  order  to  "  obviate  all  doubt 
that  may  arise  upon  the  same  "  it  was  ordered  that  the 
statute  book  should  be  cleared  of  all  enactments  relating 
"  to  the  residence  of  persons  to  be  elected  to  serve  in  Par- 
liament." 

In  view  of  the  common  interests  of  the  country  and  its 
complete  coherence  in  social  and  economic  life,  it  would  be 
idle  to  limit  the  electors  in  their  choice  of  representatives 
to  local  residents.  Moreover,  such  a  restriction  would  tend 
to  the  exclusion  from  Parliament  of  able  and  distinguished 
men  whose  reputation  is  national  rather  than  local.  But 
one  regrettable  result  of  this  freedom  of  selection  is  that  the 
varying  idiosyncrasies  of  the  different  parts  of  the  country 
are  no  longer  reflected,  distinctly  and  sharply,  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  representatives  are  not,  in  many  cases, 
racy  of  the  soil  of  their  constituencies.     Each  of  them  is 


40      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

not  permeated  with  the  spirit  of  the  place  for  which   he 
sits — thinking  its  local  thought,  speaking  its  dialect,  having 
its  accent  on  his  tongue.     A  man  with  an  Irish  brogue  may 
sit  for  a  London  constituency.     A  South  of  England  man 
may  represent  the  northernmost  constituency  in  Scotland. 
This   typical    Yorkshireman   finds   a   seat   in   the   West   of 
England  ;  that  unmistakable  Devon  man  speaks  for  a  place 
in  Lancashire.     The  manufacturer  is  returned  by  an  agri- 
cultural   county ;    the    country    squire    by    an    industrial 
borough.     It  is  true  that  in  the  main  the  representatives 
of  Wales  and  Scotland  are  essentially  Welsh  and  Scottish, 
though  less  so  with  respect  to  Scotland  than  with  respect 
to  the  other  Celtic  fringe.     The  English  membership,  which 
constitutes  the  vast  bulk  of  the  House,  is  also  strong  in 
English  characteristics  ;  but  the  views,  feelings  and  interests 
of  a  particular  locality  are  seldom  expressed  in  its  voice 
and  with  its  manner  by  its  representative.     Though  a  local 
man  is  still  supposed  to  be,  more  or  less,  a  strong  candidate, 
in   truth  local   representation  in   Parliament  is   fast   losing 
its  local  character  and  ceasing  to  have  any  local  purpose 
at  all  under  the  operation  of  the  Caucus,  or  the  system  of 
rigidly  organized  political  Parties.     Members  of  Parliament 
are  no  longer  chosen  specially  to  safeguard  the  local  interests 
of  their  constituencies.     Their  chief  purpose  is  to  have  the 
country  governed  and  administered  by  the  light  of  their 
political  principles.     This  Member  is  said  to  sit  for  Hodge- 
shire,  that  other  for  Cottonopolis.     What  they  really  repre- 
sent, generally  speaking,  is  the  Conservative  Central  Office, 
or   the   Liberal    Central    Office,    or   the   Labour   Executive. 
But  while  membership  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  now 
thoroughly  political,  it  is,  for  that  very  reason,  also  thoroughly 
national.     "  Every  Member,  though  chosen  by  one  particular 
district,   when   elected  and   returned   serves  for  the  whole 
Realm."     So  wrote  Blackstone,  in  his  Commentaries  on  the 
Laws  of  England,  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
It  was,  then,  perhaps,  but  a  pious  aspiration.     It  is  now 
undoubtedly  an    accomplished  fact,  at  least   in  the   sense 
that  the  representative  serves  for  the  whole  Realm  accord- 
ing   to    the    political    principles    which   he    is    returned  to 
uphold. 


A  NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING     41 

The  property  qualifications  which  formerly  made  a  seat 
in  the  House  of  Commons  the  privilege  of  the  rich  were 
abolished  in  1858.  At  no  time  was  it  possible  for  any  man 
but  a  man  of  substantial  means  to  gain  access  to  the  House. 
But  it  was  not  till  1711,  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  that 
an  Act  was  passed  providing  that  all  Members — except  the 
eldest  sons  of  peers  and  the  representatives  of  the  Universities 
and  of  Scottish  constituencies — must  possess  an  income 
from  land  to  the  extent  of  £600  a  year  in  the  case  of  a  knight 
of  the  shire,  and  of  £300  a  year  in  the  case  of  a  citizen  of 
a  city  and  a  burgess  of  a  borough — the  three  classes  into 
which  Members  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  then  divided. 
The  enactment  was  designed  to  perpetuate  the  ascendancy 
in  the  House  of  Commons  of  the  country  or  Tory  Party, 
which  they  themselves  feared  was  being  threatened  by  the 
rich  manufacturers  and  traders  who  were  being  returned 
by  the  cities  and  towns.  Swift  described  it  in  the 
Examiner  as  "  the  greatest  security  that  was  ever  con- 
trived for  preserving  the  Constitution,  which  otherwise 
might  in  a  little  time  be  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the 
monied  interest." 

The  law,  however,  was  evaded  frequently  by  fictitious 
conveyances  of  property.  Any  candidate  could  be  required 
to  make  a  declaration  before  the  returning  officer  that  he 
possessed  the  necessary  amount  of  income  from  land  on 
the  application  of  his  rival  or  of  any  two  electors  ;  and,  in 
order  to  be  ready  for  this  emergency,  should  it  arise,  it  was 
the  custon  for  landless  men  to  have  transferred  to  them 
by  relatives  or  friends  on  the  eve  of  the  election  sufficient 
landed  property  to  qualify,  which  they  returned  again  to  the 
donors  as  soon  as  the  election  was  over.  To  put  a  stop  to 
this  practice  an  Act  was  passed  in  1760,  during  the  reign 
of  George  II,  by  which  a  Member,  when  he  came  to  the 
Table  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance 
and  sign  the  roll,  had  not  only  to  swear  that  he  possessed 
£600  a  year  or  £300  a  year  from  land — according  as  he  was 
a  knight  of  the  shire  or  a  citizen  or  burgess — but  to  provide 
the  Clerk  with  a  schedule  setting  out  in  detail  the  situation 
and  extent  of  the  qualifying  property.  Even  so,  member- 
ship of  the  House  of  Commons  was  not  restricted  to  the 


42       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

genuine  possessors  of  landed  estate.  Temporary  transfers 
of  property  in  land  notoriously  went  on  all  the  same.  The 
only  difference  was  that  the  transfer  was  now  not  for  the 
election  only  but  for  the  life  of  the  Parliament.  Landed 
relatives  or  friends  were  still  accommodating.  The  rich  but 
landless  man  could  obtain  from  his  bank  a  rent-charge  on 
some  of  the  landed  property  which  it  possessed  in  the  way 
of  business  ;  and  for  the  man  with  no  great  balance  at  his 
bankers  there  were  attorneys  ready  to  provide  him  with 
the  qualification  for  a  fee  of  100  guineas.  It  was  well 
known  that  those  brilliant  parliamentarians,  Burke,  Pitt, 
Fox  and  Sheridan,  were  thus  fictitiously  qualified  one  way 
or  another. 

But  why  should  the  property  qualification  be  restricted 
to  incomes  from  real  estate  ?  Why  should  not  incomes  from 
personal  property  also  qualify  ?  It  was  inevitable  that 
these  questions  should  be  asked  insistently  and  urgently 
with  the  increasing  rise  of  wealthy  merchants  and  manu- 
facturers ambitious  of  taking  part  in  public  life.  Never- 
theless, it  was  not  until  1838 — six  years  after  the  great 
Reform  Act,  which  really  opened  the  doors  of  the  House 
of  Commons  to  the  middle  classes — that  it  was  provided  by 
a  statute  passed  by  the  Whig  Parliament  that  general 
property  or  professional  incomes  should  also  serve  to  qualify. 
In  all  other  respects  the  law  remained  unchanged.  The 
county  Member  had  still  to  have  an  income  of  £600  a  year, 
the  borough  Member  had  still  to  have  an  income  of  £300  a 
year,  and  both  were  still  required  to  swear  to  their  qualifi- 
cations at  the  Table  of  the  House  and  supply  particulars 
to  the  Clerk. 

Twenty  years  elapsed  before  the  property  test  for  the 
House  of  Commons  was  finally  abolished.  The  year  before 
— that  is  to  say,  in  1857 — there  was  a  painful  parliamentary 
scandal  in  connection  with  the  property  qualification.  The 
return  of  Edward  Auchmuty  Glover  for  Beverley  was 
petitioned  against,  and  as  the  result  of  the  trial  the  election 
was  declared  void  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not  possessed 
of  the  qualifying  income.  Glover  was,  by  order  of  the 
House,  tried  at  the  Old  Bailey  for  having  made  a  false 
declaration  at  the  Table  that  he  was  qualified.     The  jury 


A  NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING      43 

convicted,  but  recommended  the  prisoner  to  mercy,  as  this 
was  the  first  prosecution  for  such  an  offence,  and  as  it  was 
notorious  that  declarations  as  to  the  possession  of  the  property 
quahfication  were  loosely  made  by  Members  of  Parliament. 
A  sentence  of  three  months'  imprisonment  as  a  first-class 
misdemeanant  was,  however,  imposed.  In  the  following 
year  Locke  King — a  private  Member  who  cleared  the  statute 
book  of  many  obsolete  measures — introduced  a  Bill  for  the 
abolition  of  the  property  qualification,  which,  though  it 
encountered  considerable  opposition  in  both  Houses,  went 
through  ;  and  since  June,  1858,  the  penniless  man,  as  well 
as  the  landless  man,  has  been  eligible  for  membership  of  the 
House  of  Commons. 

From  this  arises  a  constitutional  anomaly  which  appears 
strange  indeed.  A  pauper  without  a  penny  in  the  world, 
homeless  and  voteless,  may  be  elected  a  INIember  of  Parlia- 
ment, while  only  a  man  of  property  and  position,  to  the 
extent  at  least  of  being  a  householder  or  a  lodger  of  six 
months'  standing,  and  a  payer  of  poor  rate,  directly  or 
indirectly,  is  qualified  to  vote  for  a  Member  of  Parliament. 
Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain,  in  a  speech  on  the  franchise  laws 
which  I  heard  him  make  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  1895, 
gave  a  striking  illustration  of  the  absurdity  to  which  the 
law  in  practice  led.  He  said  that  his  son,  Austen  Cham- 
berlain, who  gave  him  the  pleasure  of  his  society  by  residing 
with  him,  being  neither  a  householder  nor  a  lodger,  was 
not  entitled  to  the  vote  ;  and  yet  the  law  not  only  allowed 
his  disfranchised  son  to  sit  in  the  House  of  Commons  but  to 
become  a  Member  of  the  Government,  he  being  at  the  time 
Civil  Lord  of  the  Admiralty.  Mr.  Austin  Chamberlain  was"^ 
subsequently  appointed  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  the 
greatest  and  most  responsible  post  in  the  Government  next 
to  that  of  the  Prime  Minister  ;  and  in  the  years  he  was  the 
head  of  the  Department  controlling  the  raising  and  expen- 
diture of  the  national  taxation — being  still  unmarried  and 
residing  with  his  father — his  name  was  not  to  be  found  on 
the  burgess  rolls  of  the  Kingdom  in  respect  of  any  rating 
qualification.  I  find  that  in  the  General  Election  of  1906 
Mr.  Austen  Chamberlain  voted  in  the  City  of  London  as  a 
liveryman  of  the  Cordwainers'  Company.  ^ 


44       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

4 

There  are,  however,  certain  disqualifications  for  Member- 
ship of  the  House  of  Commons.  AHens  cannot  compete  for 
a  seat.  The  candidate  must  cither  be  a  natural  born  British 
subject  or  a  naturalized  foreigner.  Colonials  and  native 
Indians  are,  of  course,  eligible.  But  any  British  subject  may 
not  be  nominated.  The  candidate  must  be  of  the  age  of 
twenty-one  years.  Yet  the  production  of  a  birth  certificate 
is  not  required  by  the  returning  officer.  There  are  at  least 
two  notable  instances  of  "  infants  "  having  sat  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Charles  James  Fox  was  returned  for  Midhurst 
before  he  was  twenty,  and  Lord  John  Russell  for  Tavistock 
before  he  was  twenty-one.  Mental  imbecility  is  a  dis- 
qualification. It  would,  perhaps,  be  too  much  to  say  that 
the  candidate  is  required  to  be  of  sound  mind  and  under- 
standing, but  he  must  not  obviously  be  a  lunatic  or  idiot. 
If  he  should  lose  his  senses  after  election  his  case  is  provided 
for  by  "An  Act  to  amend  the  law  in  regard  to  the  vacating 
of  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons,"  which  was  passed  in 
1886.  It  enacts  that  if  a  Member  is  committed  as  a  lunatic 
to  any  asylum  it  is  the  duty  of  the  medical  doctor  who 
made  the  committal  and  the  superintendent  of  the  asylum 
to  report  the  case  without  delay  to  the  Speaker.  The 
Speaker  then  directs  the  Commissioners  of  Lunacy  to  examine 
the  Member,  and  if  they  report  that  the  Member  is  of 
unsound  mind  six  months  are  allowed  to  elapse,  when  they 
again  examine  and  report,  and  if  they  still  find  the  Member 
insane  the  two  reports  are  laid  on  the  Table  of  the  House, 
and  the  seat  thereby  becomes  vacant.  Blindness  is  not  a 
disqualification — not  even  for  the  Treasury  Bench.  There 
is  the  remarkable  case  of  Mr.  Henry  Fawcett,  who,  in  spite 
of  this  great  physical  disability,  sat  for  Hackney,  was  Post- 
master-General in  the  Gladstone  Administration  of  1880, 
and  was  the  originator  of  the  postal  order,  parcel  post,  and 
Post  Office  annuities.  Are  deaf  and  dumb  persons  dis- 
qualified by  reason  of  their  physical  defects  ?  They  are  said 
to  be,  but  as  there  is  no  case  in  point,  the  matter  is  somewhat 
in  doubt. 

English  peers  and  peers  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 


A  NEW   PARLIAMENT  IN   MAKING     45 

Kingdom  are  ineligible  for  election  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
being,  of  course,  hereditary  Members  of  the  House  of  Lords. 
The  second  Lord  Selborne  sat  as  Lord  Wolmer  in  the  House 
of  Commons  for  West  Edinburgh,  when,  on  the  death  of  his 
father  in  1895,  he  succeeded  to  the  peerage.  As  he  desired 
to  remain  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  raised  the  point 
that  a  peer,  as  such,  was  not  debarred  from  sitting  in  that 
House  until  he  received  his  writ  of  summons  to  the  other 
House  as  a  Lord  of  Parliament,  and  declared  his  intention 
to  be  not  to  make  the  necessary  application  for  such  writ 
of  summons.  The  House  of  Commons  appointed  a  Select 
Committee  to  inquire  into  the  matter,  and  on  their  report 
that  Lord  Wolmer  had  succeeded  to  a  peerage  of  the  United 
Kingdom  the  constituency  of  West  Edinburgh  was  declared 
to  be  vacant,  and  a  new  writ  was  at  once  issued  for  the 
election  of  a  Member  for  the  seat.  It  is  the  succession  to 
a  peerage,  and  not  the  receipt  of  the  writ  of  summons  to  the 
House  of  Lords,  which  is  held  to  disqualify  for  membership 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  Scottish  peers  are  also  precluded. 
Even  those  outside  the  sixteen  representative  peers  of 
Scotland — elected  by  the  general  body  of  the  Scottish 
peerage  to  sit  for  each  Parliament  in  the  House  of  Lords — 
are  ineligible  for  election  to  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
Irish  peerage  is  not  under  this  political  disability.  By  the 
Act  of  Union  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  an  Irish 
peer — providing  he  is  not  one  of  the  twenty-eight  Irish 
representative  peers  elected  by  the  general  body  of  the 
Irish  peerage  to  sit  for  life  in  the  House  of  Lords — may  be 
returned  by  any  constituency  in  England  or  Scotland.  But 
he  is  disqualified  for  an  Irish  seat.  The  most  famous  instance 
was  that  of  Lord  Palmerston,  who  was  an  Irish  peer  and 
sat  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  an  English  constituency 
for  close  on  sixty  years. 

Clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England,  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  and  Roman  Catholic  priests  are  disqualified.  The 
statutory  exclusion  of  clergymen  from  the  House  of  Commons 
dates  from  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Until 
then  the  question  was  involved  in  doubt  and  uncertainty. 
It  was  first  raised  in  a  concrete  form  by  the  return  of  the 
famous    Radical    parson,   Home    Tooke.    in    1801    for   the 


46      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

nomination  borough  of  Old  Sarum.  He  held  no  benefice  in 
the  Church,  but  as  in  law  he  was  still  a  clerk  in  Holy  Orders 
it  was  contended  that  he  was  ineligible.  A  Select  Committee 
appointed  to  inquire  into  the  precedents  reported  that  they 
were  not  sufficiently  clear  to  warrant  the  exclusion  of  Tooke  ; 
but  though  he  was,  accordingly,  allowed  to  retain  his  seat, 
an  Act  was  immediately  passed  which  closed  the  doors  of 
the  House  of  Commons  to  clergymen  of  the  Established 
Church  and  ministers  of  the  Church  of  Scotland.  Church 
of  England  parsons  who,  under  the  provisions  of  the  Clerical 
Disabilities  Act  of  1870,  divest  themselves  of  their  Orders 
become  thereby  eligible  for  election,  and  several  ex-clergymen 
have  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Roman  Catholic  priests 
are  expressly  incapacitated  by  a  clause  of  the  Emancipation 
Act  of  1829,  which  admitted  Roman  Catholic  laymen  to 
Parliament.  The  Act  of  1801  does  not  apply  to  ministers 
of  dissenting  Churches,  and  they  therefore  are  qualified  to 
sit  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Office  of  various  kinds  is  a  disqualification.  Judges  of 
the  High  Court  and  county  court  judges  are  ineligible.  In 
the  time  of  the  Stuarts  a  resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons 
precluded  Judges  of  the  High  Court  from  sitting  in  Parlia- 
ment. During  the  Commonwealth,  when  the  House  of 
Lords  was  abolished,  Sir  Matthew  Hale  and  other  dis- 
tinguished Judges  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was 
not  until  the  passing  of  the  Judicature  Act,  1875,  that  Judges 
of  the  High  Court  came  under  a  statutory  disability  to 
sit  in  the  House  of  Commons.  County  court  judges  had 
already  been  precluded  by  an  Act  passed  in  1847.  A  Recorder 
may  sit  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but  not  for  the  city  or 
borough  in  which  he  exercises  his  jurisdiction  in  criminal 
matters.  The  civil  servants  on  the  permanent  staff  of  the 
various  Departments  of  Government  are  debarred  from 
sitting  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Yet  commissioned  officers 
of  the  Army  and  Navy  are  qualified.  But  Army  officers 
become  M.P.'s  at  the  sacrifice  of  half  their  pay,  though  they 
remain  on  the  active  list.  Government  contractors  for 
work  to  be  done  or  goods  to  be  supplied  in  the  public 
service  are  ineligible.  No  returning  officer  may  stand 
for    the    place    where    he    is    commanded    by    writ    from 


A   NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING     47 

the  Crown  Office  to  hold  an  election.  A  bankrupt  is 
disqualified.  He  may  be  nominated,  but  if  elected  he 
cannot  sit. 

But  though  all  property  qualifications  have  been  abolished, 
the  aspirant  for  a  seat  in  Parliament  must  have  money 
in  his  purse,  or  raise  it  from  some  other  source.  The  expenses 
of  the  returning  officer  for  the  provision  of  polling  stations 
and  the  fee  for  his  official  services  were  formerly  paid  by 
the  candidates.  If  there  was  no  contest,  the  candidate  on 
nomination  paid  £25.  In  the  event  of  a  contest  the  charges 
were  considerably  higher.  They  ran  in  boroughs  from  £100 
up  to  £700,  and  in  counties  from  £150  to  £1,000,  according 
to  the  number  of  electors  on  the  register,  and  were  appor- 
tioned equally  between  the  candidates.  As  provided  by 
the  Representation  of  the  People  Act,  1918,  the  returning 
officer's  expenses  are  now  paid  by  the  Treasury.  But  each 
candidate  must  deposit  with  his  nomination  paper  a  sum  of 
£150,  which  is  returned  to  him  if  he  wins  as  soon  as  he  has 
taken  the  oath  as  a  Member  of  Parliament,  and  even  if  he 
loses,  provided  he  obtains  more  than  one-eighth  of  the  votes 
polled.  In  all  other  cases  the  deposit  is,  as  the  Act  says, 
"  forfeited  to  His  Majesty,"  save  in  University  elections, 
where  it  is  retained  by  the  University.  This  provision  was 
designed  to  discourage  "  freak "  candidatures.  It  costs 
more  to  lose  than  to  win  an  election. 


Polling  at  a  General  Election  is  held  on  the  one  day. 
It  is  the  ninth  day  after  nomination  day,  as  provided  by  the 
Representation  of  the  People  Act,  1918.  Before  the  day 
of  polling  a  group  of  men  wait  upon  the  returning  officer 
of  the  constituency.  They  are  usually  rate-collectors  or 
other  officials  of  the  local  municipal  bodies.  Vested  by 
the  returning  officer  with  his  authority  and  responsibilities, 
they  are  to  represent  him  in  the  polling  booths.  Each 
booth  is  in  charge  of  a  presiding  officer,  and  he  is  allowed  a 
poll  clerk  for  every  500,  or  part  of  500,  electors  on  his 
section  of  the  register  of  voters.  The  presiding  officer  and 
their  clerks  must  not  have  been  employed  in  any  capacity 
by  any  of  the  candidates  during  a  contest. 


48      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Each  presiding  officer  and  poll  clerk  signs  a  declaration 
in  which  he  undertakes  to  maintain  and  to  aid  in  maintaining 
the  secrecy  of  the  voting.  They  are  also  told  that  for  any 
breach  of  faith  in  this  respect  they  are  liable  to  six  months' 
imprisonment  with  hard  labour.  ]\Iore  than  that,  another 
section  of  the  Ballot  Act  is  read  by  the  returning  officer 
which  states  that  if  they  supply  a  ballot  paper  to  any 
unauthorized  person,  or  fraudulently  put  into  the  ballot 
box  any  paper  but  the  official  ballot  paper,  or  destroy  any 
ballot  paper,  or  open,  or  in  any  way  tamper  with  the  ballot 
box,  they  are  liable  to  imprisonment  for  any  term  not 
exceeding  two  years.  "  I  hope  none  of  you  gentlemen  will 
get  it,"  adds  the  returning  officer,  indulging  in  the  time- 
honoured  joke  of  the  occasion. 

The  returning  officer  may  use  as  a  polling  booth,  free  of 
charge,  the  rooms  of  any  school  which  is  in  receipt  of  a 
parliamentary  grant,  or  any  building  maintained  out  of  the 
local  rates.     Failing  these,   he  may  hire  any  other  place, 
with  some  important  exceptions,  such  as  an  inn  or  beerhouse 
— unless  by  consent  of  all  the  candidates  given  in  writing — 
or  a  church,  chapel,  or  other  place  of  public  worship.     The 
polling  booth  must  be  opened  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning 
on  the  day  of  the  election.     It  is  the  duty  of  the  presiding 
officer  and  his  clerks  to  be  there  at  least  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
earlier.     The  ballot  box — made  of  steel,  enamelled  in  black, 
with  a  slot  in  the  lid — is  already  in  the  booth.     The  presiding 
officer  finds  inside  the  box  the  ballot  papers,  also  pencils, 
pens,  blotting  paper,  drawing  pins,  red  tape  and  sealing- 
wax,  and  copies  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  for  adminis- 
tering  the   oath   should   occasion   for   it   arise.     There   are 
also  copies  of  so  much  of  the  register  of  voters  as  applies 
to  the  district  for  which  the  polling  booth  is  intended.     He 
also  finds  in  the  box  that  which  is  guarded  with  the  most 
jealous    care — the    official    mark    for   the    stamping    of  the 
ballot  papers.     The  returning  officer  is  bound  to  keep  the 
form  of  this  stamp  absolutely  secret  until  the  morning  of 
the  poll.     It  must  not  be  a  stamp  that  has  been  used  at 
elections  for  the   same   constituency  during  the   preceding 
seven  years,     This  official  mark  may  consist  of  any  device 
• — a  letter  of  the  alphabet^  a  cross,  or  a  circle — which  can 


A   NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING     49 

be  stamped  upon  the  ballot  paper.  No  ballot  paper  without 
this  identification  is  counted.  Owing  to  these  precautions 
it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  ballot  papers  to  be  surrep- 
titiously printed,  marked  in  favour  of  one  of  the  candidates, 
and  slipped  into  the  ballot  box  as  genuine  votes.  Then  the 
presiding  officer  shows  the  empty  ballot  box  to  those  present 
in  the  station  in  an  official  capacity,  so  that  they  can  testify 
that  when  the  polling  began  there  was  nothing  in  it, 
and  proceeds  to  lock  it  and  seal  it  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  cannot  again  be  opened  without  breaking  the 
seal.  The  slit  of  the  ballot  box  must  be  so  constructed 
that  the  voting  papers  dropped  through  it  cannot  be 
withdrawn. 

All  is  now  ready  for  the  polling.  In  the  booth  are  those 
only  who  are  authorized  to  be  present.  Each  candidate  is 
represented  by  a  polling  agent  to  look  after  his  interest. 
But  the  complete  control  of  the  booth  lies  in  the  presiding 
officer,  and  there  are  constables  present  to  carry  out  his 
commands.  He  can  have  removed  from  the  booth  any 
person  who  misconducts  himself  or  who  disputes  his  lawful 
orders.  He  may  in  certain  circumstances  give  a  disorderly 
person  into  custody.  But  he  must  be  careful  that  any 
action  he  may  take  does  not  prevent  a  person  entitled  to 
vote  from  voting. 

At  eight  o'clock  sharp  the  doors  of  the  polling  station  are 
opened.  Usually  a  number  of  electors  are  waiting  outside, 
some  to  compete  for  the  empty  distinction  of  recording 
the  first  vote,  and  some  anxious  to  discharge  the  task  or  duty 
before  going  about  the  day's  business.  The  official  register 
sets  forth  the  name,  address,  number,  and  qualification  of 
every  man  and  woman  in  the  district  entitled  to  vote.  When 
the  poll  clerk  is  satisfied  with  the  identity  of  the  applicant, 
the  white  ballot  paper  is  stamped  with  the  official  mark, 
back  and  front,  and  handed  to  the  elector,  and  a  short 
horizontal  line  or  tick  is  drawn  against  his  name  on  the 
register  to  show  that  he  has  voted.  The  ballot  papers  are 
made  up  like  cheque-books,  each  paper  having  a  counterfoil, 
and  are  numbered  consecutively  on  the  back.  As  the  poll 
clerk  gives  a  ballot  paper  to  an  elector  he  writes  on  the 
counterfoil  the  elector's  number  on  the  register.  Thus  the 
VOL.  I.  4 


50      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

vote  of  every  elector  can  be  traced  should  any  circumstances 
arise  to  make  this  necessary. 

The  voter,  provided  with  the  ballot  paper,  retires  to  a 
compartment  where,  alone  and  aloof  and  screened  from 
observation,  he  or  she  places  his  or  her  two  pencil  strokes, 
the  simple  "  X,"  and  that  only,  in  the  space  to  the  right 
of  the  name  of  the  candidate  by  whom  he  or  she  wishes 
to  be  represented  in  Parliament.  Then,  folding  up  the 
ballot  paper  so  as  to  conceal  the  mark,  but  leaving  the 
official  stamp  exposed  in  order  to  satisfy  the  presiding 
officer  or  the  poll  clerk,  by  a  cursory  glance,  that  it  is  the 
genuine  paper,  the  voter  drops  it  into  the  ballot  box  through 
the  slit  in  the  lid,  and  with  a  pleasant  sense  of  self-importance 
immediately  quits  the  polling  station. 

But  the  polling  does  not  always  proceed  with  this  easy 
and  monotonous  regularity.  Not  infrequently  a  boisterous 
elector  enters  to  whom  the  solemnity  of  the  booth  or  the 
secrecy  of  the  ballot  makes  no  appeal.  "  Your  name  and 
address,  please,"  says  the  poll  clerk.  "  My  name's  Ted 
liillywhite,  and  no  mistake,  and  I  live  at  70  Carpenter  Street, 
and  don't  you  forget  it,"  answers  the  elector  stiffly.  He 
gets  the  ballot  paper,  and  without  any  attempt  at  conceal- 
ment makes  a  big  sprawling  cross  opposite  the  name  of 
Smith,  and,  as  he  drops  the  paper  with  a  flourish  into  the 
ballot  box,  cries  :  "  There  !  I've  voted  for  Smith,  good  man 
and  true,  and  I'd  like  all  the  world  to  know  it."  Another 
man  comes  in  only  to  find  that  despite  the  vigilance  of  the 
candidates'  polling  agents — or,  it  may  be,  with  the  con- 
nivance of  one  or  other  of  them — someone  has  already  voted 
in  his  name.  The  man  is  asked  on  oath  by  the  presiding 
officer  if  he  is  the  person  he  claims  to  be,  and  if  he  swears 
that  he  is,  a  pink  ballot  paper  officially  known  as  a  "  tendered 
vote  "  is  given  him.  The  vote,  however,  is  not  put  into 
the  ballot  box,  but  is  given  to  the  presiding  officer,  who 
places  it  in  an  envelope  specially  provided  for  the  purpose. 
All  particulars  of  the  voter — name,  number  on  the  register, 
and  any  remarks  the  presiding  officer  may  have  to  make — 
are  entered  on  what  is  termed  the  tendered  votes  list,  which 
is  delivered  at  the  close  of  the  poll  to  the  returning  officer. 
There  is  also  the  clumsy  voter  who  spoils  his  ballot  paper. 


A   NEW   PARLIAMENT   IN   MAKING     51 

The  presiding  officer  may,  if  it  be  proved  to  his  satisfaction 
that  the  paper  was  inadvertently  spoiled,  cancel  it  and 
supply  the  voter  with  another.  There  is  the  elector  who 
is  blind,  or  has  no  hands,  or  is  incapacitated  by  any  physical 
cause  from  marking  the  ballot  paper  himself.  There  is 
the  elector  who  declares  his  inability  to  read.  There  is 
also  the  elector  who,  being  a  Jew,  is  precluded  by  his  religious 
belief  from  marking  his  vote  himself  should  the  polling  be 
on  a  Saturday,  which  is  his  Sabbath.  These  are  dealt  with 
alike.  The  presiding  officer,  in  the  presence  of  the  candi- 
dates' agents,  marks  the  ballot  paper  in  accordance  with 
the  wishes  of  the  voter  and  places  it  in  the  ballot  box.  The 
greatest  problem  of  all  that  confronts  the  presiding  officer 
is  the  recording  of  the  vote  of  a  deaf  and  dumb  elector  who 
can  neither  read  nor  write.  A  list  of  the  votes  so  marked, 
and  the  reasons  for  so  marking  them,  must  be  kept  by  the 
presiding  officer  and  supplied  to  the  returning  officer.  The 
presiding  officer  may  also  put  questions  to  ascertain 
whether  a  person  who  asks  for  a  ballot  paper  has 
already  voted  in  other  constituencies  in  which  he  is 
entitled  to  vote.  A  man  may  vote  by  reason  of  a  residence 
qualification  in  one  constituency  and  give  one  more  vote 
in  another  constituency  where  he  is  registered  for  a  business 
premises  qualification,  or  as  a  University  elector.  A  woman 
can  vote  in  only  one  constituency  where  she  is  registered 
by  virtue  of  her  own  or  her  husband's  local  government 
qualification,  but  she  can  vote  also  at  a  University,  if  she 
is  on  its  register. 

The  poll  closes  at  eight  or  nine  o'clock.  Ballot  papers 
cannot  be  given  out  after  that  time.  But  any  voters  who 
have  received  papers  before  the  hour  has  struck  may  put 
their  votes  into  the  ballot  box.  The  presiding  officer,  in 
the  presence  of  the  agents  of  the  candidates,  then  stops  up 
the  slot  of  the  ballot  box  and  seals  it,  so  as  to  prevent  the 
insertion  of  any  more  voting  papers.  The  ballot  box,  securely 
locked,  bound  in  red  tape  and  sealed,  is  then  brought  by 
the  presiding  officer  to  the  place  appointed  for  the  counting 
of  the  votes,  which  is  usually  the  town  hall  or  county  hall, 
and  is  delivered  up  to  the  returning  officer,  together  with 
a  statement  in  writing  of  the  number  of  ballot  papers  supplied 


52       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

to  the  polling  station,  and  accounting  for  them  under  the 
heads  of  "  used,"  "  unused,"  and  "  spoilt,"  and  also  the 
counterfoils  of  the  used  ballot  papers,  the  unused  ballot 
papers,  the  marked  copies  of  the  register  of  voters,  and  the 
list  of  tendered  votes,  all  of  which  had  been  carefully  made 
up  in  separate  parcels  and  sealed  before  leaving  the  polling 
station. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   COUNTRY'S   VERDICT 


How  simple  and  decorous  is  a  parliamentary  election  now- 
adays compared  with  the  tumultuous  polling  when  voting 
was  open,  before  the  Ballot  Act  of  1872  !  In  remote  times 
an  election  was  decided  by  a  show  of  hands  at  a  public 
meeting  of  the  electors.  The  right  of  a  candidate  to  challenge 
the  decision  on  a  show  of  hands  and  demand  a  poll  was 
established  in  the  reign  of  James  I.  However,  it  continued 
to  be  the  practice  for  the  sheriff  or  returning  officer  on  the 
day  of  nomination  still  to  ask  for  a  show  of  hands  on  behalf 
of  each  of  the  candidates,  and  to  declare  for  the  one  in 
whose  support  the  larger  number  of  hands  had  been  uplifted. 
But  as  the  majority  of  the  crowd  were  usually  non- voters, 
the  demand  for  a  poll  by  the  other  candidate  followed  as  a 
matter  of  course.  Formerly  the  election  might  last  for  a 
month,  and  the  voting  stations  might  be  kept  open  until 
late  into  the  night.  Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  a  limit 
of  fifteen  days  was  fixed  for  the  polling.  The  Reform  Act 
of  1832  further  reduced  the  period  to  two  days,  and  provided 
also  that  the  voting  should  take  place  between  the  hours 
of  nine  and  four  o'clock,  with  the  option  of  opening  an  hour 
earlier  on  the  second  day,  if  the  candidates  agreed. 

But  on  the  polling  days — whether  forty,  fifteen,  or  two — 
disorder  and  violence  were  common  throughout  the  country 
at  the  General  Election.  Indeed,  one  of  the  first  acts  of  a 
candidate  was  to  have  organized  a  mob  of  bludgeon  men 
to  protect  himself  and  his  adherents  during  the  campaign, 
and  also,  of  course,  to  intimidate  the  supporters  of  his 
opponent.     Between  the  rival  mobs  the  constituency  was 

53 


54      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

kept  in  a  state  of  excitement  and  uproar  during  the  polling. 
The  most  trying  part  of  the  contest  was  the  ordeal  of  the 
hustings.     These  were  temporary  platforms  erected  in  the 
square,  at  the  market  cross,  or  in  some  other  open  place 
of  the  borough  or  chief  county  town,  where  the  candidates 
were  proposed  and  seconded.     The  speeches  were  usually 
little   better   than    mere   dumb   show.     Each   of  the    rival 
politicians    made    determined    but   usually    vain    efforts    to 
convince  the  shrieking  mob,  amid  showers  of  stones,  mud, 
rotten   eggs   and  dead   cats,   of  the  sublime   virtue  of  his 
opinions,    or   of  the   utter   depravity   of  the   views   of  his 
opponent.     The  sort  of  item  that  was  common  in  a  candi- 
date's election  bill  before  the  Ballot  Act  was  this  :  "  To  the 
employment  of  200  men  to  obtain  a  hearing,  460s."     These 
men  believed  that  the  best  way  "  to  obtain  a  hearing  "  for 
their  employer  was  to  prevent  his  rival  being  heard  ;    and 
as  the  hired  mob  on  the  other  side  was  likewise  animated 
by    the    same    conviction,    both    candidates    were    equally 
shouted    down.     There    is,    for    instance,    the    evidence    of 
Bernal  Osborne,  a  famous  wit  and  Member  of  the  House 
of   Commons.     "  The   honourable   gentleman   talked   about 
the  voice  of  the  electors,"  he  said  in  a  debate  on  old  open- 
voting   ways.     "  As   if  the   individual   voice   of  an   elector 
was  ever  heard  at  a  nomination,  and  as  if  there  was  not 
a  general  agreement  to  roar,  to  hiss,  and  become  debased 
with  drink  !     The  true-born  Englishman  is  said  to  delight 
in  that  day.     Now,  who  are  the  true-born  Englishmen  ?" 
he    asked  ;   and    answered,    "  Why,    the   representatives   of 
muscular  Christianity — prize-fighters  and  people  of  that  sort. 
I  have  spent  as  much  money  in  retaining  the  services  of 
those  gentlemen   as  anybody   in  this   House.     One  of  my 
most  efficient  supporters  in  Nottingham  was   a  man  who 
was  always  clothed  as  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England, 
but  who  was  really  an  ex-champion  of   England,  Bendigo 
by  name." 

As  an  illustration  of  the  treatment  a  candidate  had  to 
expect  at  the  hustings,  and  of  the  style  of  speaking  which 
was  thought  appropriate  to  the  occasion,  listen  to  Disraeli 
addressing  the  Buckinghamshire  electors  at  Aylesbury. 
Received  with  a  cry  of  "  You  look  rather  white,"  he  thus 


THE   COUNTRY'S   VERDICT  55 

retorted  :  "  I  can  tell  you  that  it  is  at  least  not  the  white 
feather  I  show.  [Laughter  and  cheers,  mixed  with  howling.] 
If  any  member  of  the  melodious  company  of  owls  [loud 
laughter]  wishes  to  address  you  after  me,  I  hope  that  you 
will  give  him  a  fair  hearing.  [Interruption.]  I  can  tell  the 
honourable  gentleman  who  makes  this  interruption  that  if 
it  were  possible  for  him  to  express  the  slightest  common 
sense  in  decent  language,  I  should  be  ready  to  hear  him. 
In  the  meantime  I  must  say,  from  the  symptoms  of  intelli- 
gence which  he  has  presented  to  us  to-day,  I  hope  he  is  not 
one  whom  I  number  amongst  my  supporters.*'  (Cheers  and 
laughter.)  Disraeli,  still  directing  his  attention  to  his 
opponents,  further  said  :  "  Your  most  brilliant  argument 
is  a  groan,  and  your  happiest  repartee  a  hiss."  A  voice 
then  exclaimed  :  "  Speak  quick,  speak  quick  !  "  for  he  was 
a  slow  speaker,  and  he  retorted  :  "  It  is  very  easy  for  you 
to  speak  quick,  when  you  only  utter  a  stupid  monosyllable  ; 
but  when  I  speak  I  must  measure  my  words.  [Loud  cheers 
and  laughter].  I  have  to  open  your  great  thick  head. 
[Laughter].  What  I  speak  is  to  enlighten  you.  If  I  bawl 
like  you,  you  will  leave  this  place  as  ignorant  as  you  entered 
it."     (Cheers  and  laughter.) 

Another  picture  of  a  scene  at  the  hustings  which  I  call 
up  from  my  reading  on  the  subject  is  of  a  painful  kind.  It 
was  in  the  year  1865,  when  there  was  a  contest  for  West- 
minster, and  from  the  hustings  erected  in  Covent  Garden, 
at  the  base  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  John  Stuart  Mill,  the  Radical 
candidate,  addressed  the  crowd.  In  his  pamphlet,  Thoughts 
on  Parliamentary  Reform,  Mill  bluntly  said  that  the  working 
classes,  though  ashamed  of  lying,  were  yet  generally  liars. 
This  statement  was  printed  on  a  placard  by  Mill's  opponent 
and  aroused  against  Mill  the  animosity  of  the  working  men 
of  the  division.  At  one  meeting  he  was  asked  whether  he 
had  really  written  such  a  thing.  He  at  once  answered, 
"  I  did,"  and  scarcely  were  the  words  out  of  his  mouth 
when,  as  he  states  in  his  Autobiography,  vehement  applause 
burst  forth.  The  working  men  present  were,  according  to 
Mill,  so  used  to  equivocation  and  evasion,  that  this  direct 
avowal  took  their  fancy,  and  instead  of  being  affronted, 
they  concluded  at  once  that  Mill  was  a  person  whom  they 


66      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

could  trust.  But  Mill  does  not  mention  the  hostile  reception 
he  got  when  he  appeared  on  the  hustings.  Before  the 
speaking  commenced  a  member  of  the  crowd  asked  an 
enthusiastic  supporter  of  Mill  which  of  the  gentlemen  on 
the  hustings  was  the  candidate.  "  There,"  exclaimed  the 
admirer,  as  he  pointed  at  the  author  of  the  treatise  On 
Liberty,  "  there  is  the  great  man."  "  Then,"  said  the 
other,  taking  a  dead  cat  from  under  his  coat  and  flinging 
it  at  Mill,  "  let  him  take  that."  When  Mill  afterwards  spoke 
he  was  pelted  by  the  porters  of  Covent  Garden  with  the 
garbage  of  the  market. 

The  mob  influence  exercised  at  elections — often  the 
determining  influence — might  be  intimidatory,  but  it  was 
not  always  venal.  These  unsavoury  arguments,  dead  cats 
and  rotten  apples,  were  at  times  the  expression  of  sincere 
political  convictions  on  the  part  of  people  without  votes. 
As  it  was  only  by  the  use  of  violence  in  some  form  or  another 
that  non-voters  could  have  weight  in  public  affairs,  the 
Chartists  were  opposed  to  the  introduction  of  secret  voting 
so  long  as  the  franchise  was  restricted  to  the  comparatively 
few.  They  admitted  that  the  ballot  would  be  an  excellent 
thing  if  universal  suffrage  were  established  under  it.  Until 
then  they  avowed  their  determination  to  see  to  it  that  the 
unfranchised  part  of  public  opinion  should  not  be  deprived 
of  the  chance  of  influencing  the  electors,  under  a  system  of 
open  voting,  by  the  methods  of  blacking  eyes  and  smashing 
windows. 


To  convince  Parliament  of  the  beneficence  of  secret 
voting  at  elections  took  forty  years  of  unremitting  advocacy, 
though  meanwhile  the  franchise  had  been  enlarged.  Grote, 
the  historian  of  Greece,  who  sat  as  a  Radical  for  the  City 
of  London  from  1832  to  1841,  annually  moved  a  resolution 
in  favour  of  the  ballot.  It  was  always  rejected.  On  the 
retirement  of  Grote  into  private  life  in  1841  Henry  Berkeley 
continued  to  move  the  motion  every  year,  with  the  same 
want  of  success  until  1851,  when,  despite  the  opposition  of 
the  then  Whig  Government,  headed  by  Lord  John  Russell, 
he  carried  it  by  a  majoiity  of  thirty-seven.     Nevertheless, 


THE   COUNTRY'S   VERDICT  57 

twenty-one  years  were  yet  to  elapse  before  the  ballot  was 
finally  established  by  Act  of  Parliament.  A  Select  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Commons,  which  sat  in  1868  to  inquire 
into  corrupt  practices  at  elections,  reported  in  favour  of 
the  ballot  as  a  measure  likely  to  conduce  to  the  tranquillity, 
purity,  and  freedom  of  contests.  The  undue  influence  which 
was  exercised  in  various  forms  at  open  elections  is  strikingly 
set  forth  in  the  evidence  taken  by  that  committee.  Its 
most  common  shape  was  the  direct  physical  terrorism 
exercised  by  hired  mobs.  There  was  also  the  more  subtle 
intimidation  of  tenants  by  landlords,  of  workmen  by 
employers,  of  servants  by  masters,  of  tradesmen  and  shop- 
keepers by  customers,  and,  more  reprehensible  still,  the 
undue  spiritual  influence  of  ministers  of  religion,  who,  in 
the  guidance  of  their  flocks  as  to  the  way  they  should  vote, 
did  not  scruple  to  invoke  the  terrors  of  the  world  to  come. 
The  report  of  the  Select  Committee,  which  appeared  in 
1869,  greatly  helped  to  turn  public  opinion  in  favour  of 
the  ballot.  In  the  following  year  W.  E.  Forster,  a  Member 
of  the  then  Liberal  Government,  with  Gladstone  as  Prime 
Minister,  introduced  a  Bill  abolishing  nominations  at  the 
hustings  and  introducing  vote  by  ballot.  It  passed  through 
the  House  of  Commons,  only  to  be  rejected  by  the  House 
of  Lords  by  97  votes  to  48,  on  the  motion  of  the  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury.  The  arguments  against  the  measure  had 
been  set  forth  long  before  by  John  Stuart  Mill,  one  of 
the  ablest  and  most  distinguished  opponents  of  secret 
voting.  As  the  franchise  was  a  public  trust,  confided  to 
a  limited  number  of  the  community,  the  general  public, 
for  whose  benefit  it  was  exercised,  were  entitled  to  see  how 
it  was  used,  openly  and  in  the  light  of  day.  The  ballot, 
therefore,  meant  power  without  responsibility.  It  was  also 
cowardly  and  skulking.  Under  its  shelter  the  elector  was 
likely  to  fall  into  the  temptation  of  casting  a  mean  and 
dishonest  vote  for  his  own  benefit  as  an  individual,  or  for 
that  of  the  class  to  which  he  belonged.  The  Bill  was  rein- 
troduced in  the  following  session  of  1872.  It  passed  again 
through  the  Commons,  was  sent  up  to  the  Lords,  and,  despite 
the  renewed  opposition  of  Lord  Shaftesbury,  was  carried 
to  the  Statute  Book,     Since  then  the  elector  has  been  free 


58      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

to  vote  as  he  pleased,  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  con- 
science, his  political  convictions,  his  foolish  whims  and  his 
wayward  fancies  without  anyone  knowing  a  bit  about  it. 
The  Ballot  Act  was  not,  however,  made  the  permanent 
law  of  the  land.  In  the  House  of  Lords  an  amendment 
limiting  the  operation  of  the  Bill  to  eight  years  was  accepted 
by  the  Government.  Therefore,  from  1880  the  Ballot  Act 
had  to  be  renewed  every  year  by  being  included  in  the 
Expiring  Laws  Continuance  Act — otherwise  the  measure 
would  have  had  to  be  reintroduced  and  carried  through 
all  its  stages  in  both  Houses — until  1918,  when  a  clause  of 
the  Representation  of  the  People  Act  transformed  it  from 
an  annual  into  a  permanent  statute.  Yet  there  is  one 
election  to  which  the  Ballot  Act  does  not  apply — an  election 
for  the  representation  of  a  University.  During  the  time 
allowed  for  the  polling — about  five  days — electors  can  vote 
either  personally  or  by  proxy  papers,  which,  having  been 
signed  before  a  justice  of  the  peace,  are  sent  by  post  to 
the  University,  and  in  either  case  the  votes  are  openly 
declared   before  the  presiding  officer. 

In  the  Life  of  Groie  there  is  recorded  an  interesting 
conversation  between  him  and  his  wife  on  the  subject  of 
secret  voting  after  the  Ballot  Act  had  been  passed.  "  You 
will  feel  great  satisfaction  at  seeing  your  once  favourite 
measure  triumph  over  all  obstacles,"  said  Mrs.  Grote  to  her 
husband  one  morning  at  breakfast.  "  Since  the  wide  expan- 
sion of  the  voting  element,  I  confess  that  the  value  of  the 
ballot  has  sunk  in  my  estimation,"  the  historian  replied. 
"  I  don't,  in  fact,  think  the  electors  will  be  affected  by  it 
one  way  or  another,  so  far  as  Party  interests  are  concerned." 
"  Still,"  said  the  wife,  "  you  will  at  all  events  get  at  the 
genuine  preference  of  the  constituency."  "  No  doubt," 
said  Grote  ;  "  but  then,  again,  I  have  come  to  perceive  that 
the  choice  between  one  man  and  another  among  the  English 
people  signifies  less  than  I  used  formerly  to  think  it  did. 
The  English  mind  is  much  of  one  pattern,  take  whatsoever 
class  you  will.  The  same  favourite  prejudices,  amiable  and 
otherwise ;  the  same  antipathies,  coupled  with  ill-regulated 
though  benevolent  efforts  to  eradicate  human  evils,  are 
wellnigh  universal.      A  House  of  Commons  cannot  afford 


THE   COUNTRY'S   VERDICT  59 

to  be  above  its  own  constituents  in  intelligence,  knowledge, 
or  patriotism."  But  this  must  be  said — thanks  to  the 
ballot,  all  parties  are  united  in  eliminating  from  the  stock 
of  political  arguments  rotten  eggs,  stale  fish,  dead  cats,  over- 
ripe fruit  and  decaying  vegetables,  and,  in  agreeing  that  in 
electioneering  it  is  better  to  count  heads  than  to  break  them. 


One  of  the  most  memorable  of  General  Elections  under 
the  Ballot  Act  surely  was  that  held  in  December,  1918, 
following  the  passing  of  the  Representation  of  the  People 
Act  and  the  close  of  the  World  War,  when  women  voted 
for  the  first  time.  The  scenes  I  saw  in  London  on  the 
polling  day,  that  historic  Saturday,  made  a  profound  impres- 
sion on  me.  Women  in  thousands  flocked  to  the  booths 
as  well  as  men.  Many  wives  and  mothers  of  the  working 
class  brought  their  babies  in  perambulators.  What  did 
they  think  of  it  all  ?  They  were  not  subdued  in  demeanour 
and  thoughtful,  in  keeping  with  the  greatness  and  gravity 
of  the  occasion.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  joking  and 
laughing,  as  if  quite  elated  at  the  notion  that  they  should 
be  voting  for  a  Member  of  Parliament — and  a  Parliament 
in  which,  as  it  turned  out,  a  representative  of  their  own 
sex  was  to  sit  for  the  first  time  in  the  person  of  Lady  Astor, 
of  the  Sutton  Division  of  Plymouth. 

Even  so,  was  not  this  the  last  word  in  ordered  and 
organized  democracy  ?  Could  there  be,  I  asked  myself,  a 
more  advanced  and  striking  manifestation  of  the  free 
citizenship  in  the  most  perfectly  planned  Republic  ?  Then  I 
wondered  what  the  Barons  of  Magna  Charta — whose  statues  I 
have  so  often  looked  upon  in  the  House  of  Lords — would  have 
thought  of  it,  those  feudal  lords  who,  over  600  years  before, 
extracted  from  an  absolute  King  the  first  great  enunciation 
of  constitutional  liberty  ?  Nay,  why  go  back  so  far  and 
remotely  ?  What  would  the  working  men  who,  as  a  protest 
against  the  denial  of  electoral  reform  in  July,  1866,  tore 
down  the  railings  of  Hyde  Park,  have  thought  of  it  ?  What 
they  wanted  was  the  extension  of  the  franchise  to  male 
householders.     They  could  never  have  imagined  that  their 


60       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

grand-daughters  would  have  that  which  they  themselves 
did  not  then  possess — the  vote  for  a  Parliament  the  least 
fettered  in  the  world  by  a  written  Constitution  and  the  most 
omnipotent  in  the  exercise  of  its  legislative  powers. 


The  counting  of  the  votes  takes  place  on  the  night  of 
the  polling  day,  or  the  next  day  as  the  returning  officer  may 
appoint.  In  county  constituencies,  where  the  polling  stations 
are  many  miles  apart,  it  is  impossible  to  commence  counting 
the  votes  until  the  next  morning  ;  but  in  boroughs,  where 
all  the  ballot  boxes  are  delivered  up  to  the  returning  officer 
within  a  quarter,  or  at  most  half  an  hour,  of  the  close  of  the 
poll  at  8  or  9  p.m.,  the  counting  is  got  through  as  a  rule 
by  eleven  o'clock.  No  person  may  be  present  at  the  counting 
of  the  votes  besides  the  returning  officer  and  his  counting 
clerks,  the  candidates  and  their  agents,  except  by  the  authority 
of  the  returning  officer,  and  everyone  present  is  placed  under 
an  obligation  to  maintain,  and  aid  in  maintaining,  the  secrecy 
of  the  voting. 

The  first  thing  that  is  done  is  to  check  the  number  of 
votes  in  each  ballot  box  with  the  return  furnished  by  the 
presiding  officer  of  the  number  of  ballot  papers  issued  at 
the  polling  booth,  in  order  to  see  if  they  tally.  All  the 
ballot  papers  from  all  the  boxes  are  then  mixed  up  together 
in  one  great  heap,  so  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  find  out 
how  the  voting  went  in  any  particular  polling  district.  The 
ballot  papers  are  next  placed  on  the  table  faces  upward, 
so  that  the  number  printed  in  each  case  on  the  back — the 
only  thing  which  might  give  a  clue  to  the  identification 
of  a  voter — shall  not  be  seen.  Any  person  who  attempts  to 
obtain  the  number  of  a  voting  paper  in  violation  of  the 
secrecy  of  the  ballot  is  liable  to  six  months'  imprisonment. 
The  ballot  papers  are  then  distributed  among  the  large 
staff  of  counting  clerks  seated  at  scattered  tables  in  the 
room,  and  the  counting  of  the  votes  recorded  for  the  several 
candidates  begins.  There  are  two  ways  of  counting  in 
vogue.  In  one — the  London  way — the  clerks  are  divided 
into  pairs.     One  clerk  is  provided  with  a  sheet  of  foolscap 


THE   COUNTRY'S   VERDICT  61 

containing  the  names  of  the  candidates  with  a  number  of 
squares  under  each,  and  the  other  clerk  goes  through  the 
ballot  papers  calling  out  the  name  of  the  candidate  opposite 
to  which  the  voter  has  placed  his  cross.  If  the  vote  is  given 
for  "  Robinson,"  a  stroke  is  inserted  in  one  of  the  squares 
under  Robinson's  name  ;  if  it  is  given  for  "  Smith,"  a  stroke 
is  put  in  one  of  the  squares  under  the  name  of  Smith.  Pro- 
vision is  made  on  each  sheet  for  250  votes  to  be  thus  counted, 
and  when  either  of  the  candidates  has  received  that  number 
the  figures  for  each  are  put  at  the  foot — "  Robinson,  250," 
"  Smith,  76  " — and  the  sheet  is  passed  on  to  the  returning 
officer.  Under  the  other  system  of  counting,  each  clerk 
places  on  the  table  in  front  of  him  the  ballot  papers  for 
each  candidate  in  separate  piles,  makes  them  up  into  packets 
of  fifty,  placing  an  elastic  band  round  each,  and  hands  them 
over  to  the  returning  officer. 

The  work  of  the  counting  clerks  is  closely  watched  by 
an  agent  representing  each  of  the  candidates.  All  votes 
about  which  there  is  any  doubt  are  referred  to  the  returning 
officer.  Any  paper  which  has  on  it  any  writing  or  mark 
by  which  the  voter  could  be  identified  is  rejected.  Some 
electors  are  so  vehemently  partisan  that,  not  content  with 
making  the  simple  "X,"  they  add  personal  remarks  about 
the  candidates  or  comments  on  the  political  issues  as  the 
strong  feelings  of  the  moment  prompt  them.  I  remember 
at  one  election  where  only  Liberal  and  Socialist  candidates 
stood  many  angry  Conservatives  wrote  across  their  ballot 
papers  such  phrases  as  "  Betwixt  the  devil  and  the  deep 
sea,"  and  "  God  help  England  !  "  Every  voting  paper  so 
defaced  is  cast  aside.  Any  paper  which  contains  votes  for 
more  candidates  than  the  elector  is  entitled  to  vote  for  is 
also  void.  There  are  also  voting  papers  about  which  hang 
the  element  of  uncertainty.  On  some  the  "  X  "  is  made 
on  the  candidate's  name  ;  on  others  it  commences  in  one 
square  and  ends  in  another.  Other  electors,  again,  impishly 
desirous  no  doubt  of  puzzling  everybody  concerned,  make 
their  "  X  "  meet  exactly  on  the  line  which  separates  the 
names  of  the  candidates.  Each  paper  thus  irregularly 
marked  is  judged  on  its  own  merits,  but  the  guiding  rule  is 
that  the  vote  is  given  to  the  candidate  whose  name  appears 


62       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

within  that  section  of  the  voting  paper  where  the  Hnes  of 
the  voter's  cross  touch  each  other. 

The  candidates  are  also  present  in  the  room  with  some 
of  their  leading  and  more  intimate  supporters,  and  often 
with  their  wives,  awaiting  with  such  composure  as  they 
can  command  the  result  which  is  to  realize  or  disappoint 
their  hopes  and  ambitions.  Sometimes  the  candidates 
never  get  into  personal  touch  with  one  another  until  they 
meet  in  the  counting-room.  And  though  Party  feeling 
usually  runs  high,  those  contests  are  not  without  their 
charming  amenities.  It  was  on  such  an  occasion  that 
Thackeray  was  paid  what  he  thought  was  the  greatest 
compliment  of  his  life.  He  contested  Oxford  in  the  Liberal 
interest  in  1857,  and,  meeting  his  opponent,  Edward  Card  well, 
he  remarked  :  "  Well,  I  hope  the  best  man  will  win."  "  I 
hope  not,"  replied  the  Tory  candidate.  Notwithstanding 
all  the  care  of  the  officials,  aided  by  the  vigilance  of  the 
candidates'  agents,  mistakes  are  occasionally  made,  and, 
what  is  more  annoying  and  perplexing,  are  not  discovered 
until  after  the  result  of  the  count  is  supposed  to  have  been 
ascertained,  though  not  officially  declared  in  the  room. 
A  bundle  of  counted  ballot  papers  may  fall  unnoticed  under 
the  table,  or  may  be  erroneously  placed  in  the  batch  of 
the  wrong  candidate.  Surely  no  disappointment  more  bitter 
can  befall  a  man  than  that  of  the  candidate  who  within 
five  or  ten  minutes  of  his  feeling  certain  of  being  duly  returned 
to  Parliament  finds  there  has  been  an  error  in  the  counting, 
and  that  he  has  really  been  beaten  after  all. 

The  returning  officer  cannot  vote  at  the  election  ;  but 
should  there  be  a  tie  between  the  candidates  he  may,  if  a 
registered  elector,  give  a  casting  vote.  At  a  by-election  for 
South  Northumberland  in  April,  1878,  the  candidates, 
Albert  Grey  (afterwards  Earl  Grey)  and  Edward  Ridley 
(subsequently  a  Judge  of  the  High  Court),  polled  the  same 
number  of  votes — 2,912 — a  thing  unprecedented  in  the 
case  of  a  big  county  constituency.  The  sheriff  declined 
to  give  a  casting  vote  as  returning  officer,  although  himself 
an  elector,  preferring  to  make  a  double  return  by  declaring 
both  candidates  elected.  A  few  days  later  Mr.  Grey  and 
Mr.  Ridley  presented  themselves  at  the  Table  of  the  House 


THE   COUNTRY'S   VERDICT  63 

of  Commons,  the  oaths  were  administered  to  them,  both 
signed  the  roll,  and  both  duly  took  their  seats.  They  were 
not,  however,  allowed  to  vote.  In  the  scrutiny  which 
followed  it  was  found  that  a  few  of  the  voting  papers  were 
spoiled,  and  Mr.  Ridley,  having  a  majority  of  the  correct 
votes,  was  awarded  the  seat. 

So,  too,  in  1886,  Mr.  Addison,  Q.C.,  was  returned  in  the 
Conservative  interest  for  Ashton-under-Lyne  by  the  casting 
vote  of  the  returning  officer,  who  was  also  chief  magistrate 
of  the  town.  Mr.  Addison  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons 
for  six  years,  according  to  the  jocular  description  of  his 
opponents,  as  "  the  Hon.  Member  for  the  Mayor  of  Ashton- 
under-Lyne."  In  the  event  of  a  tie,  the  casting  vote  of  the 
returning  officer  is  only  operative  if  exercised  on  the  declara- 
tion of  the  poll.  In  October,  1892,  at  a  by-election  for  the 
Cirencester  division  of  Gloucester,  Colonel  Chesters  Master, 
the  Conservative  candidate,  was  declared  Member,  having 
defeated  Mr.  Harry  Lawson  (afterwards  Lord  Burnham), 
the  Liberal  candidate,  by  a  majority  of  three.  A  scrutiny 
of  votes  was  demanded  by  Mr.  Lawson,  and  this  showed 
that  both  candidates  had  polled  the  same  number  of  votes. 
The  sheriff,  having  ceased  to  be  returning  officer  on  the 
declaration  of  the  poll,  could  not  give  a  casting  vote,  and 
accordingly  there  had  to  be  a  new  election,  when  Mr.  Lawson 
was  elected  by  a  majority  of  upwards  of  100. 

Such  awkward  incidents,  however,  are  very  uncommon. 
The  returning  officer,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  count,  has 
usually  no  other  duty  to  discharge  than  publicly  to  declare 
the  candidate  to  whom  the  majority  of  votes  was  given 
duly  elected  to  Parliament,  and  he  sends  forthwith  the 
return  to  the  writ  of  election,  bearing  the  name  of  the 
successful  candidate,  to  the  Clerk  of  the  Crown  at  West- 
minster. The  voting  papers,  the  counterfoils,  the  marked 
copies  of  the  register  of  voters,  and  all  other  official  docu- 
ments relating  to  the  election,  are  also  made  up  in  a  bag 
and  sealed  by  the  returning  officer  and  forwarded  to  the 
Crown  Office.  To  give  an  idea  of  the  enormous  amount 
of  official  papers  used  at  a  General  Election,  I  have  been 
told  at  the  Crown  Office  that  they  weigh  from  22  to 
25  tons.      In  case  there  might  be  a  demand  for  a  scrutiny 


64      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

and  recount  of  the  voting  papers  in  any  constituency,  or 
a  petition  presented  to  declare  the  return  null  and  void 
under  the  Corrupt  Practices  Act,  all  these  documents  are 
stored  in  the  cellars  of  the  Crown  Office  for  a  year  and 
a  day  before  they  are  destroyed.  The  writs  are  kept  by 
the  Clerk  of  the  Crown  until  the  Parliament  is  dissolved, 
when  they  are  sent  to  the  Public  Record  Office,  where  they 
are  preserved. 


A   candidate   declared   elected  by  the  returning  officer, 
but  whose  return  is  questioned  by  petition,  takes  the  oath 
and  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  serves  in  the 
usual  course  until  the  report  of  the  two  Judges  who  tried 
the  petition  is  delivered  to  the  Speaker  and  is  by  him  com- 
municated to  the  House.     Jesse  Collings,  in  January,  1886, 
as  Member  for  Ipswich,  while  a  petition  against  his  return 
was  pending,  which  resulted  in  his  being  unseated  for  reasons 
for  which  he  was  personally  blameless,  moved  and  carried 
the    small    holdings   resolution,   the   famous    "  three   acres 
and  a  cow,"  which  defeated  Lord  Salisbury's  Government 
and  brought  back  to  power  again  the  Liberals  under  Glad- 
stone.    I  remember  a  petition  arising  out  of  a  contest  at 
Exeter  in  the  General  Election  of  1910  which  had  a  curious 
result.     The  Liberal  candidate  was  declared  returned  by  a 
majority  of  four.     The  Judges  who  tried  the  petition  dis- 
allowed five  votes  for  the  Liberal  given  by  five  men  who 
were  held  to  have   been  unlawfully  employed  as  bill  dis- 
tributors during  the  election,  and  accordingly  the  seat  was 
given  to  the  Conservative  candidate  by  a  majority  of  one. 
On  the  day  the  decision  of  the  Judges  was  announced  by 
the  Speaker  I  witnessed  a  very  uncommon  incident.     This 
was   the   appearance   of  the   wigged   and   gowned   Clerk  of 
the  Crown,  bringing  the  return  to  the  writ  for  the  Exeter 
election,  and  at  the  Table,  in  the  presence  of  the  Speaker 
and   the   Commons,    amending   the   return   by    substituting 
*'  H.  E.  Duke  "  for  "  H.  St.  Maur  "  as  the  Member  to  serve 
for  the  borough.     Immediately  afterwards  Mr.  Duke  took 
his  seat  in  the  House. 


THE   COUNTRY'S   VERDICT  65 


It  is  a  long  and  elaborate  process,  this  obtaining  of  the 
Verdict  of  the  country  ;  and  rightly  so,  having  regard  to  the 
momentousness  of  the  issues  that  may  be  at  stake.  The 
philosophy  expressed  at  a  General  Election  may  not  always 
be  thought  very  high  or  noble.  Often  it  has  but  root  in 
an  idea  of  material  well-being — that  men  and  women  who 
labour  with  their  hands  may  enjoy  a  little  more  of  the 
pleasures  of  life  before  the  time  comes  for  them  to  lie  down 
and  die.  And  that  is  a  most  excellent  thing,  and  well  worth 
striving  for.  But  it  is  quite  possible  to  have  inaugurated 
at  a  General  Election  a  mighty  movement  towards  an  en- 
tirely new  conception  or  order  of  life,  like  the  foundation  of 
Christianity,  the  Reformation,  or  the  French  Revolution,  and 
bring  it  about  by  the  peaceful  processes  of  parliamentary 
evolution.  To  say  the  least,  a  Nation  can  unitedly  rise  to 
a  height  of  great  glory  by  marching  to  the  polling  booths, 
and,  by  its  votes,  securing  the  success  of  a  high  moral  cause. 
Anyway,  nothing  should  be  done  to  detract  from  the  import- 
ance and  impressiveness  of  the  General  Election.  The  one 
substitute  for  the  ballot  box  that  remains  in  this  age  is  the 
match-box,  not  only  as  the  symbol  but  as  the  instrument  of 
Revolution  by  fire  and  blood,  with  the  aid  of  a  tin  of  petrol. 


VOL.    I, 


CHAPTER   V 

TRIALS  AND  TRIBULATIONS  OF  THE  M.P. 


At  every  General  Election  there  is  seen  the  old  and 
familiar,  but  ever  curious  and  interesting,  spectacle  of  about 
twelve  or  thirteen  hundred  men — who,  though  selected  at 
random  from  the  general  mass,  yet  vary  so  much  in  position, 
ability  and  temperament  that  they  may  be  said  to  reflect 
collectively  the  very  image  of  the  Nation — engaged  in 
wooing  the  constituencies  which  have  at  their  disposal  the 
707  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons.  What  are  the  irre- 
sistible allurements  that  compel  this  large  body  of  men, 
the  majority  of  them  actively  engaged  every  day  in  business 
or  professional  life,  to  spend  their  money  and  time,  their 
strength  and  temper,  in  order  that  they  may  be  given  the 
chance  of  making  a  gift  of  their  professional  capacity  and 
business  experience  to  the  Nation,  expecting  in  return,  as 
regards  the  mass  of  them,  neither  fee  nor  reward  beyond 
a  salary  of  £400  a  year  ? 

Macaulay  on  the  subject  is  well  worth  giving  ear  to. 
Writing  to  his  sister  Hannah  (subsequently  Lady  Trevelyan) 
on  June  17,  1833,  after  a  few  years'  experience  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  he  says  : 

I  begin  to  wonder  what  the  fascination  is  which  attracts  men, 
who  could  sit  over  their  tea  and  their  book  in  their  own  cool,  quiet 
room,  to  breathe  bad  air,  hear  bad  speeches,  lounge  up  and  down 
the  long  gallery,  and  doze  uneasily  on  the  green  benches  till  three  in 
the  morning.  Thank  God,  these  luxuries  are  not  necessary  for  me. 
My  pen  is  sufficient  for  my  support,  and  my  sister's  company  is 
Bufficient  for  my  happiness.  Only  let  me  see  her  well  and  cheerful, 
and  let  offices  in  Government  and  seats  in  Parliament  go  to  those 
^ho  care  for  them.     If  I  were  to  leave  public  life  to-morrow,  I  declare 

66 


TRIALS    OF   THE   M.P.  67 

that,  except  for  the  vexation  which  it  might  give  you  and  one  or  two 
others,  the  event  would  not  be  in  the  shghtest  degree  painful  to  me. 

Sir  George  Trevelyan,  in  his  Life  of  Lord  Macaulay,  not 
only  corroborates  his  uncle  as  to  the  inexplicability  of  the 
charm  of  the  House  of  Commons,  but  gives  also  from 
personal  experience  a  still  more  forbidding  description  of 
what  he  calls  "  the  tedious  and  exhaustive  routine  "  of  an 
M.P.'s  life  : 

Waiting  the  whole  evening  to  vote,  and  then  walking  half  a  mile 
at  a  foot's-pace  round  and  round  the  crowded  lobbies  ;  dining  amidst 
clamour  and  confusion,  with  a  division  twenty  minutes  long  between 
two  of  the  mouthfuls  ;  trudging  home  at  three  in  the  morning  through 
the  slush  of  a  February  thaw  ;  and  sitting  behind  Ministers  in  the 
centre  of  a  closely  packed  bench  during  the  hottest  week  of  the  London 
summer. 

If  this  were  all  that  was  to  be  said,  it  would,  indeed,  be 
hard  to  understand  why  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons 
should  be  regarded  as  an  object  to  be  sighed  for,  and  schemed 
for,  and  fought  for,  and  paid  for  by  thousands  of  very  astute 
and  able  men.  The  constituencies  are  not  engaged  at  the 
General  Election  in  fastening  this  burden  upon  unwilling 
shoulders.  How  incomprehensible,  then,  is  the  action  of 
these  who,  having  had  experience  of  the  hard  and  thankless 
lot  of  the  Member  of  Parliament,  its  mental  strain,  its 
physical  discomforts,  yet  labour  unceasingly  night  and  day 
during  the  weeks  of  the  General  Election  to  induce  the 
electors  to  send  them  back  again  to  the  dreary  round  of 
routine  tasks  at  Westminster.  Indeed,  Macaulay  himself 
felt  keenly  the  loss  of  his  seat  for  Edinburgh  in  1847,  though 
at  the  time  he  was  absorbed  in  his  History  of  England  ;  and  in 
1852,  with  his  great  work  still  uncompleted,  he  was  delighted 
to  be  returned  again  to  Parliament  by  his  old  constituency. 
But  the  truth  is,  we  have  been  given  thus  far  only  the  dark 
side  of  the  picture.  There  is  a  silver  lining  also  to  the 
cloud.  The  life  of  a  representative  of  the  people  has  of 
course  its  compensations. 

Still,  the  tribulations  of  an  M.P.  are  undoubtedly  many. 
There  are,  to  begin  with,  the  torments  of  the  post.  Cobden, 
in  a  letter  to  a  friend  early  in  1846,  when  his  name  as  the 


68       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

leader  of  the  agitation  for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  was 
in  all  men's  mouths,  gives  a  glimpse  into  the  contents,  half 
laughable  and  half  pathetic,  of  the  letter-bag  of  an  M.P. 
He  says  : 

First,  half  the  mad  people  in  the  country  who  are  still  at  large, 
and  they  are  legion,  address  their  incoherent  ravings  to  the  most 
notorious  man  of  the  hour.  Next,  the  kindred  tribe  who  think  them- 
selves poets,  who  are  more  difficult  than  the  mad  people  to  deal  with, 
send  their  doggerel  and  solicit  subscriptions  to  their  volumes,  with 
occasional  requests  to  be  allowed  to  dedicate  them.  Then  there 
are  the  Jeremy  Diddlers,  who  begin  their  epistles  with  high-flown 
compliments  upon  my  services  to  the  millions,  and  always  wind  up 
with  a  request  that  I  will  bestow  a  trifle  upon  the  individual  who 
ventures  to  lay  his  distressing  case  before  me.  To  add  to  my  miseries, 
people  have  now  got  an  idea  that  I  am  influential  with  the  Government, 
and  the  small  place-hunters  are  at  me. 

Cobden  supplied  a  specimen  of  the  begging  letters  he  was 
accustomed  to  receive.  It  was  from  a  lady  asking  him  to 
become  her  "  generous  and  noble-minded  benefactor."  As 
she  desired  to  begin  to  do  something  for  herself,  she  hoped 
he  would  procure  her  a  loan  of  £5,000  "  to  enable  her  to 
rear  poultry  for  London  and  other  large  market  towns." 
In  another  letter,  written  July  14,  1846,  after  the  taxes  on 
bread-stufj's  had  been  repealed  and  the  Corn  Law  League 
disbanded,  Cobden  says  : 

I  thought  I  should  be  allowed  to  be  forgotten  after  my  address 
to  my  constituents.  But  every  post  brings  me  twenty  or  thirty 
letters — and  such  letters  !  I  am  teased  to  death  by  place-hunters 
of  every  degree,  who  wish  me  to  procure  them  Government  appoint- 
ments. Brothers  of  peers — aye,  "  honourables  " — are  amongst  the 
number.  I  have  but  one  answer  for  all  :  "I  would  not  ask  a  favour 
of  the  Ministry  to  serve  my  own  brother."  I  often  think  what  must 
be  the  fate  of  Lord  John,  or  Peel,  with  half  the  needy  aristocracy 
knocking  at  the  Treasury  doors. 


Happily,  things  have  greatly  improved  since  the  time  of 
Cobden.  It  is  probable  that  the  average  elector  still  fails 
to  see  that  his  representative  deserves  any  gratitude  or 
thanks  for  his  services  in  Parliament.     On  the  contrary,  the 


TRIALS    OF   THE   M.P.  69 

elector  may  think  that  it  is  he  who  is  entitled  to  some  return 
for  having  helped  his  representative  to  a  seat  in  the  House 
of  Commons  in  preference  to  another  who  was  equally 
eager  for  the  honour.  The  spectacle  of  so  many  men  com- 
peting for  the  voluntary  service  of  the  State  in  the  capacity 
of  a  Member  of  Parliament  cannot  but  tend  to  convince 
the  ordinary  elector  that  he  is  conferring  a  favour  on  the 
particular  candidate  for  whom  he  votes.  Constituents, 
certainly,  are  often  very  exacting.  And  as  the  representative 
desires  to  retain  his  seat,  he  cannot  afford  to  ignore  a  letter 
from  even  the  humblest  and  obscurest  of  the  electors.  The 
General  Election  may  come  round  again  with  unexpected 
suddenness,  bringing  with  it  the  day  of  reckoning  for  the 
Member  who  has  been  neglectful  of  communications  from 
his  constituents.  Then  it  is  that  the  voter,  however  humble, 
however  obscure,  can  help  to  make  or  mar  the  prospect  of 
the  Member's  return  to  Westminster.  The  worst  of  it  is 
that  some  constituents  will  unreasonably  persist  in  asking 
for  things  impossible.  In  the  post-bag  of  the  M.P.  appoint- 
ments used  to  be  greatly  in  demand.  There  was  a  time  when 
the  M.P.  had  some  patronage  to  distribute  in  the  way  of 
nominations  to  posts  in  the  Customs  and  the  Inland  Revenue, 
for  which  no  examination  was  required,  should  the  Party 
he  supported  be  in  power.  But  that  good  time,  or  bad,  is 
gone  and  for  ever.  The  throwing  open  of  the  Civil  Service 
to  competition  deprived  the  M.P.  of  this  sort  of  small  change, 
which  he  once  was  able  to  scatter  among  the  electors  so  as 
to  reward  past  services  and  secure  future  support.  Now 
he  has  absolutely  nothing  in  his  gift,  except,  perhaps,  a 
nomination  for  any  vacant  sub-post  office  in  his  constituency. 
Yet  numbers  of  the  electors  still  imagine  there  are  many 
comfortable  posts  in  the  public  service  which  are  to  be 
had  merely  for  the  saying  of  a  word  by  their  representatives 
to  the  Minister  of  the  Department  concerned.  An  example 
of  what  the  M.P.  has  occasionally  to  put  up  with  may  be 
seen  in  the  terms  of  a  blunt  and  abusive  epistle — admittedly 
a  very  rare  one — sent  by  a  disappointed  office-seeker  to  the 
man  he  says  "  he  carried  in  on  his  own  shoulders  "  at  the 
last  election.  It  opened  :  "  You're  a  fraud,  and  you  know 
it.     I  don't  care  a  rap  for  the  billet  or  the  money  either, 


70      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

but  you  could  hev  got  it  for  me  if  you  wasn't  so  mean. 
Two  pound  a  week  ain't  any  more  to  me  than  40  shillin's 
is  to  you,  but  I  objekt  to  bein'  maid  a  fool  of."  It  went 
on  :  "  Soon  after  you  was  elected  by  my  hard  workin',  a  feller 
here  wanted  to  bet  me  that  You  wouldn't  be  in  the  House 
more  than  a  week  before  you  made  a  ass  of  yourself.  I  bet 
him  a  Cow  on  that  as  I  thort  you  was  worth  it  then.  After 
I  got  Your  Note  sayin'  you  deklined  to  ackt  in  the  matter 
I  driv  the  Cow  over  to  the  Feller's  place  an'  told  him  he  had 
won  her."  And  thus  concluded :  "  That's  orl  I  got  by 
howlin'  meself  Hoarse  for  you  on  pole  day,  an'  months 
befoar.  I  believe  you  think  you'll  get  in  agen.  I  don't. 
Yure  no  man.  An'  I  doant  think  yure  much  of  a  demercrat 
either.  I  lowers  meself  ritin  to  so  low  a  feller,  even  tho  I 
med  him  a  member  of  parlerment." 

Other  electors  argue  that  as  M.P.'s  are  law-makers  they 
should  consequently  be  able  to  rescue  law-breakers  from 
the  clutches  of  the  police  and  gaolers.  Accordingly  there 
are  appeals  for  the  remission  of  fines  imposed  on  children 
for  breaking  windows,  and  even  to  get  sentences  of  penal 
servitude  revoked.  The  respectable  tradesman  on  the  verge 
of  bankruptcy,  who  could  be  restored  to  a  sound  financial 
position  by  the  loan  of  £100,  is  perhaps  the  worst  pest  of 
all  the  cadging  letter-writers.  He  usually  declares  that  he 
not  only  voted  for  his  representative,  but  also  attended 
every  meeting  that  gentleman  addressed  in  the  course  of 
the  election.  The  best  reply  the  M.P.  could  make  to  such 
an  attempt  to  fleece  him  is  to  advise  his  correspondent 
to  attend  more  to  business  and  less  to  politics ;  but  he 
probably  never  makes  it,  for  he  can  rarely  afford  to  speak 
out  his  mind  to  a  constituent.  An  Irish  Member  who  was 
elected  for  an  Ulster  constituency  after  a  close  contest  showed 
me  a  letter  he  got  from  one  of  his  supporters  asking  for  some 
favour.  "  I  voted  for  you  under  thirteen  different  names," 
said  the  writer,  "  and  could  I  do  more  for  you  than  that  ?  " 
No  Member  would  think  of  offending  so  invaluable  a  supporter. 
Inventors  are  also  of  the  plagues  from  which  the  M.P. 
suffers.  The  man  who  knows  how  to  make  soap  out  of 
sawdust  writes  glowing  letters  about  the  fortune  awaiting 
a  company  which  would  work  the  process.     Almost  every 


TRIALS    OF   THE   M.P.  71 

post  brings  samples  of  tonics  and  boxes  of  lozenges  calculated 
to  transform  the  harshest  croak  into  the  clearest  and  mellowest 
of  voices.  "  I  shall  be  thankful  for  a  testimonial,"  said  the 
maker  of  one  mixture,  "  that  after  you  had  used  my  specific 
the  House  was  spellbound  by  the  music  of  your  tones,  and 
I  guarantee  to  extend  your  fame  by  publishing  it,  with 
your  portrait,  broadcast."  Tradesmen  are  very  importunate. 
For  instance,  the  Labour  Members  receive  circulars  from 
too  enterprising  firms  soliciting  their  custom  for  things 
which,  it  was  declared,  were  most  requisite  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  state  and  dignity  becoming  a  Member  of 
Parliament.  From  one  firm  a  Member,  fresh  from  working 
in  the  coalmines,  had  a  tender  for  a  Court  dress  of  black 
velvet,  to  cost,  with  sword,  only  £50.  A  company  of  wine 
merchants  offered  to  stock  with  the  choicest  brands  the 
wine-cellar  of  the  establishment  they  presumed  he  was  about 
to  set  up  in  London. 

The  day  after  the  announcement  of  a  birth  in  a  Member's 
family  a  van  pulled  up  at  the  entrance  to  the  Houses  of 
Parliament  containing  three  different  sorts  of  perambulators. 
The  tradesman  who  brought  them  was  extremely  indignant 
because  the  police  refused  him  admission  to  the  House  to 
display  their  good  points  and  conveniences  to  the  happy 
father  !  Poets  ask  for  subscriptions  to  publish  their  works, 
or,  enclosing  some  doggerel  verses  as  samples,  appeal  for 
orders  for  odes  for  the  next  General  Election.  "  If  you 
would  quote  in  the  House  a  verse  from  my  volume,  Twitter- 
ings in  the  Twilight,  what  a  grand  advertisement  I'd  get !  " 
wrote  one  rhymester  to  his  representative.  "  You  might 
say  something  like  this  :  '  One  of  the  most  delightful  col- 
lections of  poems  it  has  ever  been  my  good  fortune  to  come 
across  is  Mr.  Socrates  Wilkin's  Tivitterings  in  the  Twilight. 
Could  the  situation  in  which  the  Empire  finds  itself  be  more 
happily  touched  off  than  in  the  following  verse  of  that 
eminent  poet  ?  '  and  then  go  on  to  quote  some  lines  from 
my  book,  which  I  enclose."  Members  who  are  lawyers 
and  doctors  are  expected  by  a  large  section  of  their  con- 
stituents to  give  professional  advice  for  nothing.  If  one 
of  these  unreasonable  persons  has  a  dispute  with  his  landlord 
as  to  the  amount  of  rent  due,  or  finds  it  impossible  to  recover 


72      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

a  debt,  he  expects,  as  a  matter  of  course,  his  representative, 
if  a  gentleman  learned  in  the  law,  to  help  him  out  of  his 
difficulty  ;  or,  if  a  doctor,  he  favours  him  with  long  and 
incoherent  accounts  of  mysterious  complaints  from  which 
he  has  suffered  for  years.  The  M.P.  is  also  expected  to 
throw  oil  on  disturbed  domestic  waters.  Here  is  a  specimen 
of  a  communication  which  is  by  no  means  uncommon  : 

Dear  Sir, 

Me  and  the  wife  had  a  bit  of  a  tiff  last  Saturday  night, 
and  she  won't  make  it  up.  If  you  just  send  her  a  hne  saying  Bill's 
all  right,  she  will  come  round.  She  thinks  the  hell  of  a  lot  of  you 
since  you  kissed  the  nipper  the  day  you  called  for  our  votes. 

But  pity  the  poor  M.P.  who  receives  from  a  female  voter 
so  embarrassing  a  letter  as  the  following  : 

Honoured  Sir, 

I  hear  that  Mr.  Balfour  is  not  a  married  man.  Something 
tells  me  that  I  would  make  the  right  sort  of  wife  for  him.  I  am  coming 
to  London  to-morrow,  and  will  call  at  the  House  of  Commons  to  see 
you,  hoping  you  will  get  me  an  introduction  to  the  honourable  gentle- 
man.    I  am  only  thirty  years  of  age,  and  can  do  cooking  and  washing. 

Agnes  Merton. 

P.S. — Perhaps  if  Mr.  Balfour  would  not  have  me,  you  would  say 
a  word  for  me  to  one  of  the  policemen  at  the  House. 

During  the  evening  the  Member  who  received  this  strange 
epistle  cautiously  ventured  into  the  Central  Hall,  and,  sure 
enough,  espied  an  eccentric-looking  woman  in  angry  con- 
troversy with  a  constable,  who  was  trying  to  induce  her 
to  go  away.  But  she  refused  to  leave,  and  ultimately  found 
sympathetic  companions  in  the  crazy  old  party  who  has 
haunted  the  place  for  years  in  the  hope  that  some  day  she 
will  induce  the  Government  to  restore  the  £5,000,000  of 
which  she  declares  they  have  robbed  her,  and  the  other 
lady,  younger,  but  just  as  mad,  who  is  convinced  that  some 
M.P.  has  married  her  secretly  and  left  her  to  starve,  and 
has  come  to  Westminster  to  claim  him  "  before  all  the 
world." 


TRIALS   OF  THE   M.P.  73 


The  Member  of  Parliament  is  liable  to  receive  other 
communications  of  even  less  flattering  and  more  exasperating 
character.  Bribes  are  occasionally  dangled  before  him 
through  the  post.  Will  he  allow  his  name  to  be  used  in  the 
floating  of  a  company,  or  in  the  advertising  of  some  article  of 
common  use  or  a  patent  medicine  ?  Will  he  use  his  influence 
in  obtaining  a  Government  contract  for  a  certain  firm  ? 
If  he  will,  there  is  a  cheque  for  so-and-so  at  his  disposal. 
In  the  course  of  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the 
payment  of  Members,  John  Burns,  for  many  years  a  well- 
known  Liberal  Minister,  evoked  both  laughter  and  applause 
by  reading  his  reply  to  an  offer  of  £50  received  during  his 
previous  service  as  a  Labour  representative  if  he  obtained 
for  a  person  in  Belfast  a  vacant  collectorship  of  taxes. 
"  Sir,"  he  wrote,  "  you  are  a  scoundrel.  I  wish  you  were 
within  reach  of  my  boot." 

But  the  sane  and  the  righteous  give  the  M.P.  more 
annoyance  than  the  knavish  and  the  crazy.  Think  of  the 
numerous  local  functions — religious,  social,  and  political — 
to  which  the  Member  of  Parliament  is  invited  !  When  a 
meeting  is  being  organized  in  the  constituency,  naturally 
the  first  thought  of  its  promoters  is  to  try  to  get  the  Member 
to  attend.  The  more  conspicuous  he  is  in  Parliament,  and 
therefore  the  more  likely  to  attract  an  audience,  the  greater 
is  the  number  of  these  invitations ;  and  if  he  fails  to  respond, 
the  more  widespread  is  the  dissatisfaction  among  his  baulked 
constituents.  He  is  expected  to  preside  at  the  inaugural 
meetings  of  local  amateur  dramatic  societies  and  local 
naturalists'  field  clubs,  and  "  to  honour  with  his  presence  " 
the  beanfeasts  of  local  friendly  societies.  The  literary 
institution,  designed  to  keep  young  men  of  the  constituency 
out  of  the  public-houses,  must  be  opened  by  him.  He 
must  attend  entertainments  of  a  mixed  political  and  musical 
sort,  at  which  his  speech  is  sandwiched  between  a  sentimental 
song  and  a  comic. 

But  perhaps  the  Member  of  Parliament  is  most  worried 
by  the  appeals  to  his  generosity  and  charity  which  pour  in 
upon  him  in  aid  of  churches,  chapels,  mission-halls,  schools. 


74      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

working  men's  institutes,  hospitals,  asylums,  cricket  and 
football  clubs,  and  in  fact  societies  and  institutions  of  all 
sorts  and  sundry.  It  is  only  proper  that  if  money  be  needed 
for  an  excellent  local  purpose,  the  representative  of  the  dis- 
trict in  Parliament  should  be  included  in  the  appeal.  Many 
wealthy  Members  of  Parliament  spend  from  £1,000  to  £4,000 
a  year  on  local  charities,  and  they  spend  it  willingly  when 
the  objects  appear  to  them  to  be  deserving.  But  of  the 
707  M.P.'s  there  are  never  a  great  many  who  can  be  described 
as  wealthy. 

Besides  that,  many  representatives — among  them  being 
some  of  the  most  charitable  of  men — always  refuse  to  send 
contributions  to  local  objects,  influenced  by  a  sense  of 
honour  and  the  fear  that  it  might  be  regarded  as  bribing 
the  electors.  In  so  doing  they  run  a  grave  risk  of  being 
misunderstood  by  their  constituents.  If  a  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment should  refuse  to  help  in  providing  them  with  coals, 
blankets,  footballs,  cricket-bats,  big  drums,  billiard-tables, 
church  steeples,  sewing-machines,  he  is  set  down  as  mean, 
and  numbers  of  his  constituents  vow  that  he  shall  not  have 
their  votes  again  at  the  General  Election.  There  is  a  story 
told  that  when  John  Morley  was  seeking  re-election  for 
Newcastle-on-Tyne  an  elector  who  was  asked  to  vote  for 
this  statesman  of  the  highest  and  purest  ideals  indignantly 
exclaimed  :  "  Not  me  !  What  has  John  Morley  ever  done 
for  the  Rugger  Football  Club  ?  " 

The  representative  is  to  be  commended  by  all  means 
in  resisting  these  illegitimate  demands.  Macaulay,  when 
Member  for  Edinburgh,  was  asked  to  subscribe  to  a  local 
football  club.  "  Those  were  not  the  conditions  upon  which 
I  undertook  to  represent  Edinburgh,"  lie  answered.  "  In 
return  for  your  generous  confidence  I  offer  parliamentary 
service,  and  nothing  else.  The  call  that  is  now  made  is 
one  so  objectionable  that  I  must  plainly  say  I  would  rather 
take  the  Chiltern  Hundreds  than  comply  with  it.  If  our 
friends  want  a  Member  who  will  find  them  in  public  diver- 
sions, they  can  be  at  no  loss.  I  know  twenty  people  who, 
if  you  elect  them  to  Parliament,  would  gladly  treat  you 
to  a  race  and  a  race-ball  each  month.  But  I  shall  not  be 
very  easily  induced  to   believe  that  Edinburgh  is  disposed 


TRIALS   OF   THE   M.P.  75 

to  select  her  representatives  on  such  a  principle."  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  constituents. 
Surely  they  may  very  properly  ask  :  "  From  whom  can  we 
more  reasonably  seek  aid  for  our  deserving  local  charities 
than  from  our  Member  of  Parliament  ?  "  They  recall  to 
mind  his  accessibility  and  graciousness  while  he  was 
"  nursing  "  the  constituency.  Was  he  not  ever  ready  to 
preside  at  the  smoking  concerts  of  the  Sons  of  Benevolence, 
to  sing  songs  or  recite  at  the  mothers'  meetings,  to  hand 
round  the  cake  at  the  children's  tea  parties,  to  kick  off  at 
the  football  contests  ? 

His  speeches  are  also  remembered.  Did  he  not  regard 
service  in  the  House  of  Commons  while  he  was  seeking  it 
more  as  a  distinction  and  privilege  than  as  a  public  duty  ? 
Did  he  not  tell  the  electors  from  a  hundred  platforms  that 
for  all  time  he  was  absolutely  at  their  service  ?  Did  he 
not  come  to  them  literally  hat  in  hand  begging  the  favour 
• — mind  you,  the  "  favour  " — of  their  vote  and  influence  ? 
Yet  to  this  cynical  end  has  it  all  come,  that,  badgered  by 
requests  for  subscriptions  to  this,  that  or  the  other,  he 
replies — to  quote  the  prompt,  emphatic  and  printed  answer 
which    one    representative    has    sent   to    all    such   appeals  : 

"  I  was  elected  for  as  Member  of  Parliament,  not  as 

Relieving  Officer." 


In  the  House  of  Commons  itself  some  disappointments 
also  await  the  M.P.  The  motives  which  induce  men  to 
seek  for  a  seat  in  Parliament  are  many  and  diverse  ;  but 
there  is  hardly  a  doubt  whatever  that  the  main  reason  is 
a  genuine  desire  to  serve  the  State  and  promote  the  well- 
being  and  happiness  of  the  community.  Accordingly,  in 
the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  after  election  our  representatives 
zealously  set  about  informing  themselves  of  the  subjects 
which  are  likely  to  engage  their  attention  in  Parliament. 
But  soon  comes  a  rude  awakening,  bringing  with  it  the  first 
of  the  disappointments  that  await  them.  They  find  that 
to  instruct  themselves  properly  in  questions  that  are  ripening 
for  legislation  would  leave  them  very  little  time  for  the  calls 
of  business  and  social  life. 


76      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

The  breakfast  table  of  the  M.P.  is  heaped  almost  every 
morning  during  the  session  with  parliamentary  papers  of 
one  kind  or  another — Blue  Books,  Bills,  reports  and  returns. 
Blue  Books  are  popularly  supposed  to  be  unattractive  reading. 
This  is  a  mistake.  They  may  look  ominously  ponderous 
in  outward  appearanee,  but  their  matter  is  not  therefore 
portentously  dull.  With  a  little  delving,  illuminating  facts 
for  the  serious  student  of  the  condition  of  the  people — 
the  supreme  and  all-embracing  question  of  politics — come 
to  light.  There  are,  however,  not  only  too  much  of  them, 
but  too  many.  On  an  average,  eighty  are  issued  every 
year,  making  an  impossible  demand  on  the  attention  of  even 
the  most  conscientious  representative.  The  Bills  are  more 
inviting  than  the  Blue  Books,  for,  embodying  as  they  do 
the  fads  and  hobbies  of  the  707  Members  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  they  bring  one  into  touch  with  curious  mani- 
festations of  common  human  nature  and  individual  political 
ideals.  About  300  of  them  are  introduced  every  session. 
After  the  formality  of  a  first  reading,  they  are  printed 
and  circulated  among  the  representatives,  who  are  ex- 
pected to  make  themselves  acquainted  with  their  pro- 
visions. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  many  M.P.'s  give  up  this  task 
in  despair.  Instead  of  attempting  to  arrive  at  independent 
conclusions  by  personal  investigation  and  study,  they  are 
content  to  rely  upon  their  Party  leaders  to  direct  them  on 
the  right  path  in  regard  to  Government  measures  dealing 
with  the  main  public  questions  of  the  day,  and  upon  their 
Whips  as  to  whether  they  should  oppose  or  support  the 
Bills  of  private  Members.  Yet  it  is  not  always  plain  sailing, 
even  when  the  lazy  course  is  pursued  of  just  giving  one's 
ear  to  the  leaders  on  both  sides  attacking  and  defending. 
"  The  worst  effect  on  myself  resulting  from  listening  to 
the  debates  in  Parliament,"  writes  Monckton  Milnes,  "  is 
that  it  prevents  me  from  forming  any  clear  political 
opinion  on  any  subject."  Of  the  300  Bills  brought 
in  every  session,  very  few  are  passed.  So  supreme  is 
the  command  of  the  Ministry  over  the  time  of  the  House 
of  Commons  that  the  private  Members  have  little  chance 
of  carrying    legislation.      Only   the    Bills    of   the    Govern- 


TRIALS    OF   THE   M.P.  77 

ment  set  out  on  their  course  through  both  Houses  of 
Parhament  with  a  fair  prospect  of  reaching  the  Statute 
Book. 

Furthermore,  the  M.P.  who  is  ambitious  "the  Hstening 
Senate  to  command,"  also  soon  discovers  that  the  oppor- 
tunities for  talking  are  flagrantly  restricted  in  the  interest 
of  the  Government.  He  may  have  devoted  many  days  to 
the  making  and  colouring  of  artificial  flowers  of  rhetoric 
with  which  to  decorate  his  speech  in  a  great  debate.  Some- 
times he  may  get  the  chance  to  deliver  it  in  a  House  almost 
empty,  and  containing  but  two  interested  listeners — one  the 
hon.  Member  who  hopes  to  follow,  and  is  impatient  of  his 
prolixity,  and  the  other  his  wife  in  the  Ladies'  Gallery, 
fuming  at  the  indifference  with  which  his  eloquent  periods 
are  being  received.  That  is  bad  enough  ;  but  there  is  a  worse 
fate  still.  He  may  sit  night  after  night  on  the  pounce 
to  "  catch  the  Speaker's  eye  "  and  yet  fail  to  fix  the  atten- 
tion of  that  wandering  orb.  Meanwhile  he  may  hear  his 
arguments  and  his  epigrams  made  use  of  by  luckier  men, 
who  probably  got  them  in  the  Library  from  the  same  shelf, 
the  same  book,  the  same  page  as  himself.  Finally,  the 
debate  may  be  brought  to  an  end,  leaving  him  baulked  in 
his  design,  with  a  mind  further  oppressed  by  the  burden 
of  a  weighty  unspoken  speech.  Then  his  constituents  say 
unpleasant  things  of  him  because  they  do  not  see  his  name 
in  the  newspaper  reports.  He  is  neglecting  his  duty,  or  he 
is  an  empty-minded  "  silent  Member,"  who,  having  nothing 
to  say,  says  it. 

There  is  an  old  proverb  at  Westminster  which  declares 
that  "  they  are  the  wisest  part  of  Parliament  who  use  the 
greatest  silence."  Again,  in  the  opinion  of  the  leaders  of 
the  Party  in  office  he  is  the  most  useful  of  Members  who 
never  consumes  valuable  time  by  speaking,  but  is  ever  at 
hand  to  vote  when  the  bells  ring  out  the  summons  to  the 
division.  The  man  who  always  votes  at  his  Party's  call 
and  never  dreams  of  thinking:  for  himself  at  all  is  to  be 
found  by  the  score  in  the  House  of  Commons.  But  to  many 
another  M.P.  it  must  be  a  sore  trial  to  find  his  opinions 
often  dictated  by  his  leaders  and  his  movements  in  and  out 
of  the  House  controlled  by  the  Whips.     Party  discipline  is 


78       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

strict  in  all  the  political  groups,  and  violations  of  it  are 
rarely  condoned.  The  speech  of  the  Member  who  is  sincere 
and  courageous  enough  to  take  up  an  attitude  independent 
of  his  Party  in  regard  to  some  question  of  the  day  is  received 
with  jeers  by  his  colleagues,  and,  what  is  perhaps  more 
disconcerting,  with  cheers  by  the  fellows  on  the  other  side. 
There  are,  to  be  sure,  representatives  to  whom  the  House 
of  Commons  is  but  a  vastly  agreeable  diversion  from  other 
pleasures  and  pursuits.  Imagine  the  feelings  of  such  an 
easy-going  Member  when,  on  a  dull  night  off,  an  urgently 
worded  and  heavily  underscored  communication  from  the 
Whips  demanding  his  immediate  attendance  is  delivered 
by  special  messenger  at  some  most  inopportune  moment, 
perhaps  as  he  is  just  sitting  down  to  a  pleasant  dinner  or 
is  leaving  his  house  for  the  Frivolity  Theatre.  If,  prone  as 
he  is  to  yield  to  the  temptation  of  the  flesh,  he  should  ignore 
this  peremptory  call  of  Party  duty,  he  is  held  guilty,  like 
the  crank  and  the  faddist,  of  a  grave  breach  of  discipline. 
His  past  services  in  the  division  lobbies — on  nights  when  the 
proceedings  in  the  House  were  to  him  a  most  enjoyable 
lark — are  forgotten.  He  gets  a  solemn  lecture  from  the 
Chief  Whip  on  the  enormity  of  his  offence.  Worse  still,  his 
name  is  published  in  an  official  black  list  of  defaulters,  or 
a  nasty  paragraph  exposing  his  neglect  of  duty  appears 
in  the  newspaper  which  most  widely  circulates  in  his  con- 
stituency. 

And  yet  what  model  M.P.,  Liberal  or  Unionist  or  Labour, 
with  all  his  sincere  attention  to  the  desires,  the  whims,  the 
caprices  of  his  constituents,  with  all  his  willing  surrender 
of  private  judgment  to  his  leaders,  of  personal  pleasures 
to  the  Whips,  can  confidently  feel  that  his  seat  is  safe  ? 
It  is  hard  to  get  into  Parliament.  To  remain  there  is  just 
as  difficult.  The  insecurity  of  the  tenure  of  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons  is  perhaps  the  greatest  drawback  of 
public  life.  Many  a  man  with  ambition  and  talent  for 
office  does  years  of  splendid  service  for  his  Party  in  Oppo- 
sition. The  General  Election  comes.  His  Party  is  vic- 
torious at  the  polls.  But  he  himself  has  been  worsted  in 
the  fight,  and  he  has  the  mortification  of  seeing  another 
receive  the  office  which  would  have  been^his  in  happier 


TRIALS    OF   THE   M.P.  79 

circumstances.  To  such  a  man  with  his  capacity  for  pubhc 
life,  with  his  keen  enjoyment  of  the  Party  fights  in  Parha- 
ment,  existence  outside  must  be  barren  and  dreary  indeed. 
Yet  never  again  may  he  cross  the  charmed  portals  of  the 
House  of  Commons. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   FASCINATION   OF   THE  HOUSE 
OF   COMMONS 


But  now  that  the  litany  of  the  cares  and  disappointments 
of  a  Member  of  Parliament  is  exhausted,  there  remain  many 
compensations  which  make  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons 
an  object  greatly  to  be  coveted,  and  well  worth  the  physical 
labour,  the  mental  worry,  the  demands  on  the  purse,  which 
are  involved  in  its  attainment.  Its  rewards  are  chiefly 
moral  and  social.  The  gratification  of  having  won  the 
trust  of  a  large  body  of  the  public  comes  first,  perhaps. 
Then  there  is  the  sense  of  the  power  and  influence  of  the 
legislator.  The  House  of  Commons  is  the  greatest  and 
most  renowned  of  national  assemblies.  To  be  a  Member  of 
it  is  a  great  honour.  The  letters  "  M.P.  "  add  distinction 
to  a  name.  That  is  a  proper  source  of  pride  on  the  part 
of  the  Member  himself.  It  is  also  a  mark  for  the  deference 
of  others.  The  "  M.P.  "  is  lifted  out  of  the  common  run 
of  humanity.  Most  of  us  would  look  a  second  time  at  a 
man  casually  encountered  in  the  street  if  we  were  told  he 
was  an  "  M.P." 

The  House  of  Commons  has  been  called,  as  everyone 
knows,  "  the  best  club  in  London."  The  phrase,  by  the 
way,  was  used  for  the  first  time  in  a  novel  called  Friends 
of  Bohemia,  or  Phases  of  London  Life,  written  in  the  mid- 
Victorian  era  by  E.  M.  Whitty,  then  a  sketch-writer  in  the 
Reporters'  Gallery.  Some  say  the  House  has  lost  its  proud 
pre-eminence  in  that  respect.  There  is  an  entire  absence 
of  class  feelings  and  social  distinctions  in  the  House.  That 
the  cook's  son  is  the  equal  of  the  duke's  son  is,  perhaps, 

60 


THE   FASCINATION   OF   THE   HOUSE      81 

more  unreservedly  admitted  by  the  duke's  son  than  by  the 
cook's  son.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Members  will  tell  you 
that  they  differ  too  widely  in  class,  wealth,  avocations, 
business  pursuits,  and,  above  all,  in  political  ideas  and  prin- 
ciples, for  them  to  be  clubbable  in  the  mass  by  reason  of 
mental  affinity  or  association  of  interests.  Yet  there  is  no 
doubt  whatever  that  in  regard  to  one  of  the  objects  of 
a  club,  ministering  to  the  personal  needs  and  comforts  of 
its  members,  the  House  is  far  better  equipped  now  than 
ever  it  was  in  its  most  socially  select  period,  before  the 
Reform  Act  of  1832. 

At  that  time  hungry  Members  were  able  to  obtain  but 
a  steak  or  a  chop,  or  a  pork  pie,  at  Bellamy's  famous 
restaurant,  which  stood  in  Old  Palace  Yard  immediately 
adjoining  the  old  Houses  of  Parliament.  Now  they  have 
an  elaborate  restaurant,  very  properly  subsidized  out  of 
the  public  funds,  and  managed  by  a  Kitchen  Committee 
elected  by  themselves.  Before  the  World  War  an  excellent 
meal  of  three  courses  could  be  had  for  a  shilling  ;  and  to 
realize  what  might  then  have  been  obtained  for  five  shillings 
would  stagger  the  imagination  of  a  gourmand.  Prices  still 
remain  below  those  charged  for  similar  meals  in  a  first- 
class  restaurant.  Even  the  secrets  of  the  cellars  have  been 
recklessly  disclosed  to  the  electors.  There  is  the  "  Valentia 
Vat,"  holding  1,000  gallons  of  the  rarest  Scotch  whisky. 
But  our  representatives  are  not  stimulated  by  whisky 
alone,  whether  Scotch  or  Irish.  We  are  also  told  that  the 
cellars  are  always  well  stocked  with  wines. 

In  the  old  House  of  Commons,  which  was  swept  away 
by  the  great  fire  of  1834,  there  was  but  one  smoking-room. 
What  it  was  like  Macaulay  describes  in  a  letter  to  his  sister, 
dated  July  23,  1832.  "  I  am  writing  here  at  eleven  o'clock 
at  night,"  he  said,  "  in  the  filthiest  of  filthy  atmospheres, 
in  the  vilest  of  all  vile  company,  and  with  the  smell  of 
tobacco  in  my  nostrils."  In  the  Palace  of  Westminster 
to-day  there  are  several  rooms  devoted  to  the  enjoyment 
of  tobacco.  The  engaging  spectacle  to  be  witnessed,  by 
all  accounts,  in  the  chief  smoking-room  any  night  of  a 
session  suggests  the  question  :  Is  there  any  reality  in  Party 
conflicts  ?  If  half  what  M.P.'s  say  of  each  other  be  true, 
VOL.   I.  6 


82       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

a  man  who  is  not  a  politician  and  is  careful  of  his  reputation 
would  not  like  to  be  discovered  associating  with  them. 
Yet  opponents  who  have  just  been  raging  furiously  against 
each  other  in  the  Chamber,  are,  we  are  told,  to  be  seen 
exchanging  opinions  of  politics,  questions  and  personalities, 
with  mutual  good  humour,  frankness  and  confidence  over 
coffee  and  cigarettes,  in  the  delightful  companionship  of 
the  smoking-rooms.  Political  controversy  has  there  its 
fangs  drawn.  The  only  emulation  between  Members  of 
opposite  political  parties  when  they  foregather  in  clouds 
of  tobacco  smoke  is  as  to  who  will  say  the  cheeriest  word 
and  tell  the  most  amusing  story,  with  the  result  that  many 
fast  friendships  between  them  are  formed. 

Chess  is  also  played.  It  is  the  only  game  permitted  at 
Westminster.  One  year  there  was  a  great  match  played 
over  the  telegraph  wires  between  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  United  States  Congress,  and  though  at  one  time 
the  defeat  of  America  seemed  eminent,  the  match  ended 
in  a  draw.  In  1920  the  introduction  of  billiards  and  cards 
was  again  suggested.  "It  is  contrary  to  the  traditions  of 
the  House  that  cards  and  billiards  should  be  played  within 
the  precincts,"  said  Sir  Alfred  Mond,  First  Commissioner  of 
Works,  in  reply.  Then  there  is  that  most  agreeable  of  all 
the  adjuncts  of  the  House,  the  Library.  It  consists  of  five 
pleasant  rooms  overlooking  the  river.  The  bookcases  are 
of  carved  oak  ;  the  volumes  are  beautifully  bound  ;  Members 
move  about  silently,  for  all  sound  is  deadened  by  the  thick 
carpets,  and  the  atmosphere  is  delightfully  pervaded  with 
the  aroma  of  Russian  leather.  The  books  are  about  50,000 
in  number,  mainly  historical,  constitutional,  legal,  and 
political — just  the  works,  in  fact,  where  Members  are  certain 
to  find  the  necessary  material  for  confuting  each  other's 
arguments. 

The  Ladies'  Gallery,  and  the  development  of  the  Terrace 
from  a  lounge  for  Members,  which  was  its  original  purpose, 
into  a  society  resort,  have  added  greatly  to  the  attractive- 
ness of  the  House  of  Commons.  They  explain  the  remark- 
able expansion,  within  recent  years,  of  what  may  be  called 
the  fashionable  side  of  Parliament.  It  must  not  be  sup- 
posed that  this  admission  of  ladies  into  Parliament  by  a 


THE   FASCINATION   OF   THE   HOUSE      83 

side-door — unknown  to  the  Constitution  long  before  they 
were  made  ehgible  for  election  by  statute — has  had  the 
result  of  making  Members  neglectful  of  their  duties.  On 
the  contrary,  the  social  functions  at  Westminster  during 
the  session  have  the  effect  of  keeping  members,  and  the 
young  members  especially,  more  regular  in  their  attendance, 
or,  at  least,  more  within  hearing  of  the  division  bells. 


Besides  that,  many  Members  of  Parliament  derive 
pleasure  even  from  experiences  which  by  others  are  re- 
garded as  worries  and  vexations.  Their  correspondence, 
with  all  its  manifestations  of  strange  phases  of  human 
nature,  is  a  source  of  entertainment  to  some,  and  it  ministers 
to  the  sense  of  self-importance  of  others.  There  are  Members 
who  give  an  ear  of  affable  condescension  to  eccentric  fre- 
quenters of  the  Central  Hall,  such  as  the  mad  engineer 
with  his  scheme  for  uniting  Ireland  with  Great  Britain 
by  a  bridge  thrown  across  the  Channel,  via  the  Isle  of  Man, 
thus  consummating  a  real  tangible  union  between  the  two 
countries.  They  have  a  smile  of  welcome  and  a  hearty 
handshake  for  all  and  sundry  from  their  constituencies 
who  call  upon  them  at  St.  Stephen's.  There  are  Members 
to  whom  the  pressing  invitations  to  attend  bazaars,  flower 
shows,  tea  meetings,  smoking  concerts,  cricket  and  football 
matches,  are  flattering  evidence  of  their  popularity,  and 
they  are  accepted  accordingly  with  a  rare  delight. 

The  House  of  Commons  affords  a  splendid  field — no 
better  in  the  whole  wide  world — for  the  vain  and  ambitious 
who  yearn  for  applause  or  crave  for  power.  Any  Member 
can  easily  emerge  from  the  obscurity  of  the  back  benches 
into  the  full  glare  of  the  limelight.  Let  him  but  flagrantly 
break  one  of  the  rules  of  order,  and  his  name  will  appear 
as  a  headline  in  a  thousand  newspapers.  Then  there  are 
the  material  rewards.  The  young  and  ambitious  are  offered 
the  dazzling  prospect  of  office.  The  possession  of  any 
post  in  the  Administration,  even  the  humblest,  carries  with 
it  a  seat  on  the  Treasury  Bench,  side  by  side  with  eminent 
statesmen   whose   names   are   household   words.     It   carries 


84       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

also  the  right,  when  addressing  the  House,  to  stand  at  the 
Table  before  the  famous  despatch  box,  to  lean  elbow  on  it, 
and  even  to  thump  it,  as  an  added  emphasis  in  the  very 
passion  of  argument,  as  was  done  by  all  the  renowned  parlia- 
mentarians of  the  past.  It  is  true  that  keen  and  fierce 
is  the  competition  for  the  higher  offices  in  the  Adminis- 
tration. The  House  of  Commons,  with  all  its  constitutional 
supremacy  as  an  institution,  is  composed  of  human  beings. 
That  being  so,  it  is  not  free  from  the  unamiable  character- 
istics of  intrigue  and  envy  ;  and  the  qualities  of  resolute 
will  and  tenacity  of  purpose  are,  indeed,  necessary  in  the 
ambitious  young  Member  if  he  is  to  escape  from  being 
pushed  aside  or  being  trampled  upon  in  the  race  for  office. 
Once  on  the  Treasury  Bench,  however,  he  has  won  half 
the  battle  for  a  post  in  the  very  hierarchy  of  the  Govern- 
ment— the  exclusive  ring  of  Cabinet  Ministers. 

Yet  the  number  of  men  in  the  House  of  Commons  with- 
out social  or  political  ambition  is  remarkably  large  ;  men, 
too,  who  are  absolutely  unknown  outside  their  constitu- 
encies. They  are  in  Parliament  literally  for  their  health. 
During  the  day  they  are  engaged  in  the  direction  of  great 
industrial  and  commercial  undertakings,  and  in  the  evening 
they  go  down  to  Westminster  for  that  rest  and  recuper- 
ation which  comes  with  change  of  scene  and  occupation. 
They  find  the  duties  of  an  M.P.  very  agreeable,  on  the 
whole.  The  responsibilities  of  the  position  sit  lightly  upon 
them.  They  find  a  joy  in  all  the  details  of  parliamentary 
life. 

Many  old  men,  who  have  spent  themselves  in  trade  or 
finance,  take  to  politics  in  the  evening  of  their  days  as  a 
mild  relaxation  or  hobby,  and  a  means  of  prolonging  life. 
There  was  once  a  great  merchant  who,  when  he  left  for 
ever  his  desk  in  the  city,  after  an  association  of  half  a 
century,  found  the  separation  a  terrible  strain,  and  seemed 
likely  to  pine  and  mope  his  way  quickly  to  the  grave.  His 
medical  adviser  recommended  him  to  find  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons  as  a  distraction  to  relieve  the  monotony 
of  his  existence.  But  the  old  man  did  not  like  the  suggestion. 
He  knew  nothing  of  public  questions.  The  financial  intel- 
ligence was  the  only  portion  of  his  morning  paper  which 


THE   FASCINATION   OF   THE  HOUSE     85 

he  had  carefully  studied  for  fifty  years.  "  If  you  do  not 
go  into  the  House  of  Commons,  you  will  have  to  go  to 
Paradise,"  said  the  doctor  ;  "  it  is  the  only  alternative." 
"  Then  I  will  choose  the  House  of  Commons,"  said  the  old 
City  man,  with  a  sigh  of  resignation.  And  how  glad  he 
was  when  he  became  a  Member  !  At  last,  something  of  the 
joy  of  life  had  really  come  to  him. 

To  sit  silently  on  the  green  benches  during  a  debate, 
save  when  they  cheer  a  supporter,  or  roar  at  an  opponent, 
and  to  walk  through  the  division  lobbies,  voting  as  directed 
by  the  Whips,  amply  satisfy  the  desire  of  not  a  few  Members 
for  political  thought  and  labour.  It  is  an  existence  that 
excites  and  soothes  by  turns.  Disraeli  once  said  to  a  friend 
who  had  just  entered  the  House  of  Commons  :  "  You  have 
chosen  the  only  career  in  which  a  man  is  never  old.  A 
statesman  can  feel  and  inspire  interest  longer  than  any 
other  man."  A  seat  in  the  House  does  not,  of  course,  make 
one  a  statesman.  But,  as  a  general  proposition,  there  is 
much  force  in  Disraeli's  saying.  Old  men  find  the  fountain 
of  youth  in  the  halls  of  Westminster.  It  is  all  nonsense 
what  one  sometimes  reads  about  the  weary  and  trying  round 
of  parliamentary  life.  There  are  men  in  the  House  of 
Commons  who,  after  twenty,  thirty,  forty  years  of  service, 
show  no  symptoms  of  physical  exhaustion,  and  who  will 
tell  you  that  Parliament  is  the  most  interesting  and  most 
entertaining  place  in  the  world.  John  Morley  once  spoke 
of  the  daily  round  of  an  M.P.  as  "  business  without  work 
and  idleness  without  rest."  During  the  years  he  was 
engaged  in  writing  his  Life  of  Gladstone  he  took  no  active 
part  in  the  controversies  of  the  House  of  Commons.  But 
he  could  not  keep  entirely  away  from  the  place.  How 
often  had  I  seen  that  fine  philosophical  writer  at  this  par- 
ticular period  of  his  career  sitting  on  the  front  Opposition 
Bench,  at  the  gangway  corner,  his  arms  folded,  his  legs 
crossed,  listening,  like  an  ordinary  mortal,  for  hours  to 
Members  venturing  to  say  this,  not  hesitating  to  say  that, 
going  one  step  further,  adding  another  word,  on  subjects 
that  must  have  had  no  interest  for  him.  The  spell  of  the 
House  of  Commons  was  upon  him.  He  could  not  keep 
away.     He  had  to  come  down,  even  as  a  distraction,  just 


86       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

to  see  if  anything  was  going  on.     Nothing  was  going  on, 
but  he  remained  for  hours. 


Parhamentarj''  Hfe  has  a  fascination  which  few  men, 
having  once  breathed  its  intoxicating  atmosphere,  can 
successfully  withstand.  Its  call  is  irresistible.  Cobden  thus 
wrote  from  a  retreat  in  Wales,  in  July,  1846,  after  the  object 
of  his  parliamentary  career,  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws, 
had  been  achieved  : 

I  am  going  into  the  wilderness  to  pray  for  a  return  of  the  taste 
I  once  possessed  for  nature,  and  simple,  quiet  life.  Here  I  am,  one  day 
from  Manchester,  in  the  loveliest  valley  out  of  Paradise.  Ten  years 
ago,  before  I  was  an  agitator,  I  spent  a  day  or  two  in  this  house. 
Comparing  my  sensations  now  with  those  I  then  experienced,  I  feel 
how  much  I  have  lost  in  winning  public  fame.  The  rough  tempest 
has  spoiled  for  me  a  quiet  haven.  I  feel  I  shall  never  be  able  to  cast 
anchor  again.  It  seems  as  if  some  mesmeric  hand  were  on  my  brain, 
or  that  I  was  possessed  by  an  unquiet  fiend  urging  me  forward  in  spite 
of  myself. 

However  disappointed  a  Member  may  be  in  failing  to 
realize  his  dreams  of  political  ambition  and  social  success, 
there  remains  for  him  the  consoling  thought — indeed,  the 
great  reward — that  he  has  the  honour  of  serving  the  State, 
of  helping  in  the  management  of  national  affairs,  of  guid- 
ing the  destinies  of  a  mighty  Commonwealth.  No  wonder 
that  most  Members  quit  this  exalted  and  historic  scene 
reluctantly,  with  the  deepest  regret — aye,  with  breaking 
hearts.  Should  so  great  a  misfortune  befall  them  of  being 
rejected  from  further  service  by  their  constituents  at  the 
General  Election,  they  long  to  return  again  to  the  green 
benches.  Complacently  to  settle  down  to  the  humdrum 
of  private  life  is  for  many  of  them  impossible. 

Even  the  old  and  worn  agitators  who  have  voluntarily 
resigned  pine  to  be  in  the  thick  of  the  shoutings  of  the  rival 
Parties,  and  the  trampings  through  the  division  lobbies.  There 
was  William  Wilberforce,  the  emancipator  of  the  slaves.  Sir 
Samuel  Romilly,  who  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  1807, 
when  slavery  within  the  British  Empire  was  finally  abolished, 


THE   FASCINATION   OF  THE  HOUSE    87 

said  of  Wilberforce  :  "  He  can  lay  his  head  upon  his  pillow 
and  remember  that  the  slave  trade  was  no  more."  But 
was  Wilberforce  content  to  be  out  of  Parliament  even  in 
his  extreme  old  age  ?  Hannah  Macaulay  relates  that  in 
1830,  while  staying  at  Highwood  Hill,  the  guest  of  Wilber- 
force, she  got  a  letter  from  her  brother,  enclosing  an  offer 
to  him  from  Lord  Lansdowne  of  the  seat  for  the  pocket 
borough  of  Calne.  She  showed  the  communication  to 
Wilberforce.  "  He  was  silent  for  a  moment,"  she  writes, 
"  and  then  his  mobile  face  lighted  up,  and  he  slapped  his 
hand  to  his  ear  and  cried  :  '  Ah  !  I  hear  that  shout  again  ! 
Hear,  hear  !     What  a  life  it  was  !  '  " 


CHAPTER   VII 

PALACE   OF  WESTMINSTER 


The  Palace  of  Westminster,  in  which  Lords  and  Commons 
meet — the  largest  and  most  imposing  Gothic  building  in 
the  world — may  be  regarded,  rising  so  nobly  on  the  left 
bank  of  the  Thames,  as  an  expression  in  architecture  of 
the  dignity  and  stability  of  Parliament,  and  the  honour  in 
^which  it  is  held  by  the  Nation^  Most  visitors  to  the  Palace 
reach  it  by  Whitehall  or  Victoria  Street.  On  that  side 
are  the  entrances  to  both  Houses.  It  is  more  picturesque, 
but  less  imposing,  than  the  river  front.  The  inclusion 
of  Westminster  Hall — the  only  overground  portion  of 
the  old  Palace  saved  from  the  fire  of  1834 — enforced 
the  breaking  up  of  the  western  or  land  front  of  the  new 
Palace  into  a  variety  of  fa9ades.  The  light  and  shade  pro- 
duced by  the  massive  grey  masonry  of  the  ancient  Hall, 
mingling  with  the  Gothic  gracefulness  of  the  new  Palace, 
is  very  beautiful,  and  also  pregnant  with  historic  meaning. 
It  reminds  one  of  the  survival  of  tradition  in  the  forms 
and  ceremonies  of  Parliament.  The  effect  of  this  blending 
of  the  past  and  present  is  heightened  by  the  close  contiguity 
of  the  venerable  Abbey,  and  the  open  grassy  space,  known 
as  Parliament  Square,  with  its  efligies  of  great  Victorian 
statesmen — Sir  Robert  Peel,  Lord  Palmerston,  the  Earl  of 
Derby,  and  Lord  Beaconsfield — which  front  the  forecourt 
of  the  Palace  ;  and  the  striking  figure  of  Oliver  Cromwell, 
with  sword  and  Bible,  on  the  sunken  grass  plot  by  the  side 
of  Westminster  Hall.  To  the  contemplative  mind  the  long 
history  of  government  and  administration  is  presented — its 

struggles,  its  controversies,  its  failures,  its  successes, 

m 


PALACE    OF   WESTMINSTER  89 

But  the  most  impressive  view  of  the  Palace  to  the  eye 
is  obtained  from  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Thames.  Stand- 
ing beneath  the  aged  and  hoary  Lambeth  Palace  on  the 
Surrey  side — town  house  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury — 
and  looking  across  the  river,  especially  when  the  mighty 
waterway  is  at  its  full  tide,  one  realizes  more  completely 
the  Gothic  stateliness  of  this  temple  of  legislation,  the  out- 
come of  the  constructive  genius  of  Sir  Charles  Barry,  and 
the  graceful  fancy  of  Augustus  Welby  Pugin.  The  long 
fayade  above  the  river  wall  and  terrace,  its  uniform  sym- 
metry, the  lightness  and  grace  of  its  stone  carving,  the 
many  steeples  and  pinnacles — beginning  with  the  delicate 
tracery  of  the  lofty  Clock  Tower,  close  to  Westminster 
Bridge,  and  terminating  with  the  solid  massiveness  of  the 
colossal  Victoria  Tower — form  altogether  a  most  imposing 
masterpiece  in  architecture,  worthy  of  the  ancient  and 
august  National  Assembly  which  deliberates  within  its  walls, 
that  mother  of  representative  institutions  which  perhaps 
is  the  greatest  gift  of  the  English  race  to  mankind.  So 
it  is  that  something  of  the  secret  of  the  high  place  which 
Parliament  holds  in  popular  esteem  and  pride  may  be  found 
in  the  grandeur  of  its  home.  At  any  rate,  the  spectacle 
presented  by  the  Palace  of  Westminster  does  impress  the 
mind  with  the  glory  of  the  purpose  of  Parliament  and  its 
might.  Here  we  see  the  apotheosis  of  politics,  the  science 
of  the  progress  and  well-being  of  humanity,  and  the  temple 
in  which  it  is  fittingly  served. 

Thus  at  Westminster  we  have  not  only  the  flower  or 
the  fruit  of  the  national  life  in  the  guidance  of  the  State 
aright,  but  its  roots  and  fibres  going  deep  down  to  the  very 
bedrock  of  the  past.  For  more  than  six  centuries  the  grand 
inquest  of  the  Nation  has  sat  at  Westminster.  At  first  it 
was  a  council  of  the  great  and  wise  summoned  by  the  King 
personally.  When  Edward  I,  "  the  great  law-giver,"  sent 
to  the  sheriffs  writs  for  the  election  of  two  knights  for  each 
shire,  two  citizens  for  each  city,  two  burgesses  for  each 
borough,  in  addition  to  himself  calling  together  the  prelates 
and  the  nobles,  the  principle  of  popular  election  came  into 
operation.  The  Parliament  thus  elected  and  known  as 
the  "  Model  Parliament  "  was  really  representative  of  the 


90      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Nation  at  large.  It  met  in  the  Palace  of  Westminster  so 
long  ago  as  November,  1295.  For  over  a  century  the  three 
estates  of  the  realm — the  Prelates,  the  Nobles,  and  the 
Commons — deliberated  together.  The  division  of  Parlia- 
ment into  two  Houses — one  for  the  Peers,  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral, and  the  other  for  the  Commons — took  place  in  1377, 
the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  The  Lords  have 
always  met  in  the  Palace  of  Westminster.  The  Commons 
for  the  best  part  of  two  centuries  assembled  in  the  Chapter 
House,  or  the  Refectory,  of  Westminster  Abbey.  They  held 
their  last  sitting  there  on  the  day  that  Henry  VIII  died. 

Henry's  son  and  successor,  Edward  VI,  gave  St. 
Stephen's  Chapel — within  the  Palace  of  Westminster — to 
the  Commons  for  their  meeting  place  in  1547,  the  first 
year  of  his  reign,  and  there  the  representatives  of  the  people 
regularly  met  and  deliberated  until  the  place  was  destroyed 
by  fire  in  1834.  This  Chapel,  built  by  Edward  III  in  1327, 
the  first  year  of  his  reign,  on  the  ruins  of  the  original  St. 
Stephen's  Chapel  (which  was  provided  by  King  Stephen  in 
1147  for  the  use  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Palace,  and 
dedicated  by  him  to  the  first  Christian  martyr)  was  in  the 
beautiful  Gothic  of  the  period,  and  Italian  artists  were 
brought  to  London  to  adorn  its  walls  with  religious  frescoes. 
After  the  Reformation,  when  the  Chapel  was  transferred  from 
the  Crown  to  the  House  of  Commons,  these  mural  paintings 
were  covered  over  with  a  plain,  decorous  wainscot,  which 
in  the  gay  times  of  Charles  II  was  in  turn  hidden  behind 
rich  tapestry  hangings.  These  tapestries  disappeared  in 
the  alterations  made  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren  in  1707,  after 
the  Union  of  England  and  Scotland,  so  as  to  provide  accom- 
modation for  the  forty-five  Members  from  Scotland.  The 
Chamber  underwent  a  final  transformation  in  1800,  when, 
as  a  result  of  the  Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
seats  for  100  additional  Members  had  to  be  found.  The 
old  wainscot  was  then  taken  down  ;  and  although  the 
paintings  of  the  Italian  artists  of  the  fourteenth  century 
were  found  to  be  in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation,  they 
were  demolished  likewise  to  make  room  for  the  required 
two  extra  lines  of  benches  on  each  side.  There  were  now 
five  rows  of  benches  on  either  side,  divided,  as  in  the  present 


PALACE   OF  WESTMINSTER  91 

Chamber,  by  a  gangway.  The  Speaker's  Chair  was  at  the 
top  of  the  Chamber,  where  the  altar  originally  stood.  It 
was  a  carved  oak  armchair,  surmounted  with  the  Royal 
Arms  of  England.     Below  it,  as  now,  was  the  Clerk's  table. 

The  old  House  of  Lords,  like  the  old  House  of  Commons, 
was  an  oblong  chamber  with  rows  of  benches  on  each  side 
running  up  from  the  floor  to  the  walls.  On  the  walls  hung 
tapestries,  divided  into  compartments  by  oak  frames,  illus- 
trating scenes  from  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada  in 
1588,  and  with  medallion  portraits  of  the  principal  English 
naval  captains  woven  in  the  borders.  They  were  the  gifts 
of  the  States  of  Holland  to  Queen  Elizabeth  in  commemora- 
tion of  England's  great  deliverance  and  the  ruined  dream 
of  Spain.  The  Throne  on  which  all  the  Sovereigns  of 
England  from  1550  to  1834— from  Edward  VI  to  William  IV 
— sat  on  the  assembling  of  Parliament  was  at  the  top  of 
the  Chamber.  It  was  a  carved  gilt  armchair  standing  on 
a  dais.  The  seat  was  lined  with  crimson  velvet.  Two  gilt 
Corinthian  pillars  supported  a  canopy,  also  of  crimson 
velvet,  and  the  whole  was  surmounted  by  a  crown. 

Between  the  two  Houses  lay  the  Painted  Chamber,  a 
survival  of  the  original  Palace,  erected  by  Edward  the 
Confessor,  who  indeed  used  this  particular  room  as  a  sleep- 
ing apartment  and  died  in  it.  Its  walls  were  painted  with 
battle  scenes  by  direction  of  Henry  III  in  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  hence  its  name.  Here  the 
Court,  before  which  Charles  I  was  arraigned,  sat  for  the 
concluding  days  of  the  trial.  Here  Oliver  Cromwell  and 
Henry  Martin  blacked  each  other's  faces  in  fun,  like  giddy 
young  schoolboys,  as  they  signed  the  warrant  which  con- 
demned the  King  to  the  headsman's  axe.  The  Chamber 
was  also  used  for  conferences  between  representatives  of 
both  Houses  when  they  differed  in  regard  to  a  Bill.  At 
these  meetings  the  Peers  were  seated  and  wore  their  hats, 
while  the  Commons  had  humbly  to  stand  uncovered. 


Thus   the   old    Palace   of  Westminster   was    historically 
of  great  interest.     But  it  had  no  pretensions  to  beauty. 


92       THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

It  was  just  an  architectural  patchwork,  added  to  from  time 
to  time  without  any  sense  of  order  or  unity  of  design. 
Interiorily,  it  was  also  confined  and  uncommodious.  Yet 
the  idea  of  pulling  it  down  to  give  place  to  a  building  of 
nobler  proportions  and  one  more  suitable  to  its  great  pur- 
pose was  not  relished.  In  the  very  last  session  of  the 
Commons  that  was  held  in  St.  Stephen's  Chapel  Joseph 
Hume  proposed  that  new  Houses  of  Parliament  should  be 
built  in  the  Green  Park.  The  motion  was  rejected.  Four 
or  five  months  later,  as  the  buildings  were  enveloped  in 
flames,  one  of  the  spectators  wittily  cried  out :  "  There  is 
Joe  Hume's  motion  being  carried  without  a  division." 

The  great  conflagration  which  destroyed  the  Palace 
was  on  the  night  of  Thursday,  October  16,  1834.  The 
Whig  Ministry,  under  Earl  Grey,  that  carried  the  Reform 
Act  of  1832,  broke  up  in  July  on  the  question  of  appro- 
priating portion  of  the  revenues  of  the  Church  in  Ireland 
to  secular  purposes,  and  was  succeeded  by  another  Whig 
Administration  with  Lord  Melbourne  as  Prime  Minister. 
Parliament  was  prorogued  on  August  15th  by  King 
William  IV  in  person.  It  was  to  meet  again  on  October 
23rd.  When  that  day  came  the  ancient  Palace  of  West- 
minster was  a  thing  of  the  past.  At  first  it  was  thought 
the  fire  was  the  work  of  political  incendiaries.  But  a  Com- 
mittee of  the  Privy  Council  found,  after  a  long  and  searching 
investigation,  that  it  was  due  solely  to  human  stupidity. 
An  immense  quantity  of  old  wooden  "  tallies  "  or  notched 
sticks,  originally  used  as  receipts  for  sums  paid  into  the 
Exchequer,  had  accumulated  at  Westminster,  and,  after 
the  abolition  of  this  barbaric  mode  of  keeping  the  national 
accounts  and  the  substitution  of  pens,  ink  and  paper,  in 
1826,  the  sticks  were  used  as  firewood  in  the  Government 
offices.  As  the  room  in  which  the  remaining  "  tallies  " 
were  stored  at  Westminster  was  required  for  another  pur- 
pose, two  men  were  employed  all  day,  on  October  16,  1834, 
in  getting  rid  of  the  sticks  by  burning  them  in  the  stove 
under  the  House  of  Lords  by  which  that  Chamber  was 
heated.  At  five  o'clock  they  went  home.  At  half-past 
six  the  House  of  I-ords  was  found  to  be  on  fire.  The  heat 
from  the  over-charged  flues    had    ignited  the  panelling  of 


PALACE    OF   WESTMINSTER  93 

the  Chamber.  The  progress  of  the  flames  could  not  be 
stayed,  and  gradually  the  conflagration  swept  over  the  whole 
mass  of  buildings.  Thus  did  the  ancient  Palace  of  West- 
minster disappear  through  an  act  of  almost  incredible  care- 
lessness. All  that  remained  of  the  historic  fabric  were  the 
cloisters  of  the  old  St.  Stephen's  Chapel  (or  House  of  Com- 
mons), the  crypt  beneath  the  Chapel,  in  which  the  Speaker 
used  to  entertain  Members  at  dinners  and  other  social 
functions,  and,  happily,  Westminster  Hall,  with  its  centuried 
associations  of  great  men  and  historic  deeds.  Practically 
everything  else  was  destroyed,  including  the  Throne  in  the 
House  of  Lords  and  the  Chair  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

On  October  23,  1834,  the  day  appointed  for  the  re- 
assembling of  Parliament,  the  two  Houses  met  for  a  brief 
and  formal  sitting  amid  acres  of  still  smouldering  ruins, 
the  Lords  within  the  charred  walls  of  their  library,  and  the 
Commons  in  an  adjoining  committee-room.  It  was  decided 
temporarily  to  flt  up  the  House  of  Lords  for  the  use  of  the 
Commons,  and  the  Painted  Chamber  for  the  use  of  the 
Lords,  and  a  sum  of  £30,000  was  voted  for  the  purpose. 
A  Royal  Commission  was  also  appointed  to  superintend 
the  construction  of  a  new  Palace  of  Westminster.  Parlia- 
ment then  adjourned.  On  November  I'tth  King  William 
dismissed  the  Melbourne  Ministry,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  was 
commanded  to  form  a  new  Administration.  On  the  advice 
of  the  Prime  Minister,  the  King  dissolved  Parliament  on 
December  29th,  and  the  new  Parliament  met  on  February  19, 
1835,  in  the  temporary  buildings,  which  continued  to  be  used 
till  the  completion  of  the  present  Palace  of  Westminster. 


Among  the  immense  crowd  which  witnessed  the  grand 
and  terrible  spectacle  of  the  burning  of  the  old  Houses  of 
Parliament  on  that  night  in  October  1834  was  an  architect 
named  Charles  Barry.  He  had  known  and  loved  the 
ancient  and  historic  pile  from  his  earliest  years,  for,  born 
in  1795,  the  son  of  a  stationer  w^ho  had  a  shop  in  Bridge 
Street,  opposite  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  he  had  grown 
to  manhood   under  its   very   shadow.     Parliament  decided 


94      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

to  have  an  open  competition  for  designs  of  the  new  legis- 
lative buildings.  The  only  condition  imposed  was  that  the 
style  should  be  either  Gothic  or  Elizabethan.  As  many  as 
ninety-seven  architects  entered  the  lists.  The  successful 
competitor  was  Barry  for  his  Gothic  plan.  He  was  forty 
years  old  at  the  time.  In  superintending  the  building  and 
internal  decoration  of  the  Palace — subject  to  the  control 
of  the  Royal  Commission — Barry  was  assisted  by  Augustus 
Welby  Pugin,  another  architect  and  an  authority  on  the 
Gothic  style.  Hume's  idea  of  removing  the  Houses  of 
Parliament  to  the  Green  Park  was  revived,  but  the  historic 
associations  of  Westminster  made  too  great  an  appeal. 
Moreover,  was  not  the  Duke  of  Wellington  of  opinion — 
far-seeing  man  that  he  was — that  the  site  by  the  river  was 
the  best,  as  it  would  be  fool-hardy  to  have  the  Houses  of 
Parliament  accessible  on  all  sides  to  an  attacking  mob? 

The  river  wall  was  begun  in  1837.  The  buildings  were 
not  commenced  until  three  years  later.  The  selection  of 
the  stone  received  the  anxious  consideration  of  the  Com- 
missioners. Finally  the  hard  magnesian  limestone  from 
Anston,  in  Yorkshire,  was  selected  for  the  exterior  of  the 
buildings,  and  French  Caen  stone  for  the  interior.  Then, 
on  April  27,  1840,  the  first  stone — it  may  be  seen  from 
Westminster  Bridge  in  the  south-east  angle  of  the  plinth 
of  the  Speaker's  House — was  laid  without  any  public  cere- 
mony by  the  wife  of  the  architect,  and  the  vast  edifice  was 
raised  on  a  bed  of  concrete,  12  feet  thick.  Exactly 
seven  years  later — April  15,  1847 — the  Lords  first  occupied 
their  House  ;  and  at  the  opening  of  the  session  of  1852, 
on  November  4th,  the  Commons  assembled  in  their  new 
Chamber. 

The  progress  of  the  building  was  beset  with  many  diffi- 
culties and  vexations  for  the  designer.  The  Palace  was 
originally  expected  to  be  finished  in  six  years,  at  a  cost 
of  £800,000,  exclusive  of  furniture  and  fittings.  Twenty 
years  passed  before  it  was  fully  completed,  and  over 
£2,000,000  was  expended  upon  it.  The  Treasury  refused 
to  pay  Barry  an  architect's  professional  fees  of  5  per  cent, 
upon  the  outlay  on  the  works  executed  under  his  direction, 
and  fixed  his  remuneration  at  £25,000,  or  £23,000  less  than 


PALACE   OF   WESTMINSTER  95 

he  held  he  was  entitled  to.  His  designs  were  also  sub- 
jected to  continuous  criticism  and  attack  by  other  architects. 
However,  he  was  knighted  on  the  completion  of  his  splendid 
work.  Dying  suddenly  at  Clapham  Common  on  May  12, 
1860,  his  remains  were  honoured  by  a  grave  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  His  statue  by  John  Henry  Foley  stands  at  the 
foot  of  the  great  staircase  leading  to  the  committee-rooms 
of  the  Houses  of  Parliament. 


4 

Probably  no  feature  of  London  is  so  familiar  in  the 
metropolis,  or  so  widely  known  by  name  in  the  provinces, 
as  the  famous  clock  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  No 
visitor  to  London  would  think  of  returning  home  with- 
out having  seen  "  Big  Ben  "  and  heard  him  chiming  the 
quarters  and  booming  out  the  hour.  During  the  summer 
season  hundreds  of  thousands  of  strangers,  not  only  from 
the  provinces,  but  from  far-off  lands,  gaze  up  at  his  massive, 
honest  face,  proud  and  delighted  to  have  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  so  great  a  London  celebrity.  It  is  the  largest  clock 
in  the  world.  Each  of  the  four  dials,  there  being  one  for 
each  point  of  the  compass,  is  of  white  enamelled  glass  and 
23  feet  in  diameter.  The  minute  marks  on  the  dial  look 
as  if  they  were  close  together.  They  are  14  inches  apart. 
The  numerals  are  two  feet  long.  The  minute  hand  is  14  feet, 
and  the  hour  hand  six  feet.  To  wind  the  clock  takes  about 
five  hours.  The  time  is  regulated  by  electric  communication 
with  Greenwich  Observatory. 

The  clock  has  a  large  bell  to  toll  the  hours  and  four 
smaller  ones  to  chime  the  quarters.  The  large  bell  is  called 
"  Big  Ben,"  after  Sir  Benjamin  Hall,  who  was  First  Com- 
missioner of  Works  when  the  Clock  Tower  was  erected. 
It  weights  13|  tons.  Twenty  men  could  stand  under  it. 
For  a  clapper  it  has  a  piece  of  iron  2  feet  long,  12  inches 
in  diameter,  and  weighing  12  cwt.  No  wonder,  then,  that 
there  are  few  things  more  impressive  than  "  Big  Ben " 
tolling  the  hour  of  twelve,  in  his  slow,  measured  and 
solemn  tones,  especially  at  midnight,  when  the  roar  of 
London  is  hushed  in  slumber.     And   what  is  said  by  the 


96      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

full  chime  of  bells  before  the  striking  of  each  hour  ?  Here 
is  the  verse,  simple  and  beautiful,  to  which  the  chime — 
a  run  of  notes  from  the  accompaniment  to  "  I  know  that  my 
Redeemer  liveth  "  in  Handel's  Messiah — is  set  : 

Lord,  through  this  hour 

Be  Thou  our  guide, 
That  by  Thy  Power 

No  foot  may  slide. 

During  the  session  of  Parliament  a  brilliant  steady 
light,  blazing  from  a  lantern  over  "  Big  Ben,"  may  be  seen 
at  night  from  most  parts  of  London.  It  indicates  that 
the  House  of  Commons  is  sitting.  So  long  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  are  in  conclave,  the  light  flashes 
its  white  flame  through  the  darkness.  It  vanishes  the 
moment  the  House  rises.  A  wire  runs  from  the  lantern 
down  to  a  room  under  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  when  the  question,  "  That  this  House  do  now  adjourn  " 
is  agreed  to,  a  man  stationed  below  pulls  a  switch,  which 
instantly  extinguishes  the  light.  When  this  beacon  was 
first  set  on  high,  and  for  many  years  after,  it  shone  only 
towards  the  west,  for  it  was  thought  unlikely  than  an  M.P. 
would  dwell  in,  or  even  visit,  any  other  quarter  of  the  town. 
But  with  the  extension  of  the  franchise  Parliament  became 
democratized,  and  a  new  lantern  was  provided  which  sheds 
its  beams  in  the  direction  of  Peckham  as  well  as  of  Pall 
Mall.  The  light  should  be  regarded  by  all  who  see  it  as 
a  sacred  symbol  of  the  fire  of  liberty,  law  and  justice  ever 
burning  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Another  comparatively 
recent  innovation  is  the  flying  of  the  Union  Jack  from  the 
iron  flagstaff,  64  feet  high,  which  tops  the  336  feet  of  the 
Victoria  Tower,  on  days  that  Parliament  is  sitting.  Only 
the  Royal  Standard  was  seen,  before  that,  on  the  rare 
occasions  that  Queen  Victoria  came  to  open  Parliament 
in  person.  Small  as  the  Union  Jack  seems  to  the  upturned 
gaze  of  persons  in  the  streets,  it  is  of  remarkable  dimensions, 
being  60  feet  long  and  45  feet  wide.  I  saw  one  day  the 
flag  of  another  country  flying  for  the  first  time  side  by 
side  with  the  Union  Jack  over  the  Victoria  Tower.  It 
was  the  Stars  and  Stripes.     The  day  was  April  20,  1917 — 


PALACE   OF   WESTMINSTER  97 

the  day  on  which  the  United  States  joined  France,   Italy 
and  England  in  the  War  against  Germany. 


The  Palace  of  Westminster  covers  an  area  of  nine  acres. 
Eleven  courts  or  quadrangles  give  light  and  air  to  its  1,200 
or  1,300  rooms,  its  hundred  staircases,  and  its  two  miles 
of  corridors.     In  the  very  heart  of  the  Palace  is  the  great 
Central  Hall,  above  which  rises  a  tower  terminating  in  a 
spire,  and  right  and  left  of  the  Hall  are  the  two  Houses 
of  Parliament — the  Commons'  Chamber  nearer  to  the  Clock 
Tower,  the  Lords'  Chamber  nearer  to  the  Victoria  Tower, 
— while  about  them  lie  the  retiring  rooms  of  their  respective 
Members  and  the  homes  of  their  principal  officers.      There^ 
used  to  be  twenty  official  residences  in  the  Palace.   ,jPhey 
have  been  considerably  reduced  in  order  to  provide  more 
accommodation  for  Members.     Still,  on  the  Commons  side, 
the  Speaker,  the  Clerk  and  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  are  com- 
modiously  housed.     In  the  old  Palace  a  Minister  had  no 
escape  from  the  House  of  Commons  except  the  Library  or 
smoking-room,  which  were  available  to  all  Members,   and 
one  gathers  from  the  published  recollections  of  old  parlia- 
mentarians that  it  was  not  seemly  for  a  Cabinet  Minister 
to  be  seen  there.     "  The  place  for  a  Minister,"  it  used  to 
be   said,    "  if   at   the   House,    is    in  the   House."      In    the 
new   Palace    every    Minister    has    a    private    room    in    the 
corridors    at  the  back  of  the  Speaker's  Chair,  in  which  he 
may   transact  departmental   business  and   receive   visitors, 
when  his  presence  in  the  House  is  not  particularly  required. 
The  principal  entrance  to  the  Palace  of  Westminster  is 
by  St.  Stephen's  Porch,  in  Old  Palace  Yard.     Immediately 
to   the   left  extends   the   wonderful   and   impressive   West- 
minster Hall,  the  thrilling  associations  of  which  must  quicken 
the   pulses   of  the   least   imaginative.     Straight   ahead   lies 
St.  Stephen's  Hall,  leading  to  the  Central  Hall  of  the  Houses 
of  Parliament.     This  noble  hall  is  traversed  daily,  during 
the  session,  by  thousands  of  the  public  on  their  way  to  or 
from  the  Legislative  Chambers.     How  many  pay  heed  to 
its   strange  vicissitudes  ?     It  occupies    the  site    of  old    St. 
VOL.   I.  7 


98      THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Stephen's  Chapel  (originally  the  Chapel  Royal  of  the  ancient 
Palace  of  Westminster),  in  which,  as  I  have  said,  the 
Commons  sat  regularly  from  the  sixteenth  century  to  the 
nineteenth.  In  the  building  of  the  new  Palace,  St.  Stephen's 
Hall  was  raised  on  the  vaulted  foundations  of  St.  Stephen's 
Chapel.  The  positions  of  the  Speaker's  Chair  and  the  Table 
are  marked  by  brass  plates  set  in  the  floor  of  St.  Stephen's 
Hall.  Here  it  was  that  one  of  the  most  historic  of  parlia- 
mentary incidents  took  place.  On  this  very  spot  stood 
Charles  I  and  Mr.  Speaker  Lenthal  when  the  King  demanded 
whether  there  were  then  present  in  the  House  the  five 
Members,  including  Pym  and  Hampden,  who  had  promoted 
the  Grand  Remonstrance  against  his  unconstitutional  action, 
and  the  Speaker  made  his  famous  reply  :  "I  have  neither 
eyes  to  see  not  tongue  to  speak  in  this  place,  but  as  the 
House  is  pleased  to  direct  me,  whose  servant  I  am,"  and 
when  the  angry  cries  of  "  Privilege,  Privilege  !  "  raised  by 
Members  were  the  presage  of  civil  war.  St.  Stephen's  Hall 
fittingly  contains  statues  of  twelve  of  the  greatest  and  wisest 
statesmen  whose  voices  so  often  rang  through  the  old  House 
of  Commons.  The  statesmen  thus  honoured  are  Selden, 
Hampden,  Falkland,  Clarendon,  Somers,  Walpole,  Chatham, 
Mansfield,  Burke,  Fox,  Pitt  and  Grattan  ;  and  the  selection 
was  made  by  the  historians  Macaulay  and  Hallam. 

Beneath  St.  Stephen's  Hall  is  the  old  crypt  of  St. 
Stephen's  Chapel.  Like  the  Chapel,  it  was  originally  used 
for  religious  services.  For  centuries  after  the  Reformation 
it  was  used  as  a  place  for  shooting  rubbish.  About  a  quarter 
of  a  century  before  the  fire  of  1834  it  was  converted  into 
a  dining-room  in  which  the  dinners  given  by  the  Speaker 
to  Members  took  place.  After  the  fire  the  crypt  was 
restored  to  its  original  purpose,  and  for  a  time  was 
a  place  of  worship  for  the  numerous  residents  within  the 
area  of  the  Palace  of  Westminster.  It  is  the  most  beauti- 
ful place  in  the  Palace,  with  its  altar,  inlaid  marble  floor, 
walls  of  mosaic  and  groined  ceiling.  It  is  also  a  place  of 
solitude  and  silence.  Not  for  years  has  it  been  used  as 
a  place  of  worship.  The  only  sound  to  which  it  now  re- 
echoes is  the  cry  of  the  infant  as  the  water  of  baptism  is 
poured  on  its  head.     One  of  the  few  privileges  of  an  M.P. 


PALACE   OF   WESTMINSTER  99 

is  that   a  child   born   to    him    may    be    christened    in    St. 
Stephen's  Crypt. 

A  new  Member  is  not  many  hours  in  the  Palace  of  West- 
minster before  he  has  secured  the  special  peg  for  his  hat 
and  overcoat  in  the  beautiful  cloisters  of  old  St.  Stephen's, 
which  has  been  turned  into  a  cloak-room  for  the  Commons  ; 
obtained  one  of  the  long  rows  of  lockers,  or  presses,  in  the 
corridors,  immediately  surrounding  the  Chamber,  to  which 
each  Member  is  entitled,  for  storing  books  and  papers ; 
enjoyed  a  pipe  or  cigar  in  the  smoking-room  ;  had  a  meal 
in  one  of  the  several  dining-rooms  ;  read  the  newspapers 
in  the  news-room,  or  made  himself  acquainted  with  some 
of  the  contents  of  the  extensive  Library  ;  strolled  on  the 
Terrace  ;  had  tea  in  the  tea-room,  and  dispatched  numbers 
of  letters  on  the  official  stationery  of  the  House  to  relatives 
and  friends  giving  his  first  impressions  of  the  scene  where 
glory  or  obscurity  awaits  him  as  a  representative  of  the  people. 

6 

One  of  the  most  pleasant  adjuncts  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons is  the  large  and  lofty  suite  of  rooms  overlooking  the 
Thames,  which  is  devoted  to  the  Library.  But  there  is 
more  in  these  apartments  than  books.  They  also  contain 
some  rare  and  most  interesting  historical  relics,  parlia- 
mentary and  political.  Here  in  a  glass  case  is  shown  a 
manuscript  volume,  stained  and  mouldered,  of  the  old 
Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  writing  on  the 
pages  that  are  open  is  not  easily  decipherable.  But  it  is 
well  worth  while  endeavouring  to  peruse  it,  for  it  is  the 
official  chronicle  of  the  raid  of  Charles  I  on  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  shaky  handwriting  tells  of  the  agitation 
of  the  Clerk  when  he  made  the  record. 

In  the  Library  is  also  to  be  seen  a  memento  of  a  curious 
privilege  enjoyed  of  old  by  Members  of  Parliament.  This 
is  a  collection  of  envelopes  franked  by  eminent  Members  of 
both  Houses.  It  comprises  about  10,000  signatures,  and 
covers  the  period  from  1784  to  1840,  when  franking  was 
abolished.  By  the  system  of  franking.  Peers  and  Commons 
had  the  free  delivery  of  letters  posted  by  themselves  and 


100     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

their  friends.  It  was  introduced  in  1660  to  relieve  Members 
of  some  of  the  expenses  incurred  in  the  discharge  of  their 
national  duties.  But  this  freedom  of  the  Post  Office  was 
not  confined  to  letters.  Household  furniture  and  even  a 
pack  of  hounds  were  sent  free  through  the  post  by  M.P.'s 
in  England,  and  in  Ireland  an  M.P.  franked  his  wife  and 
children  from  Galway  to  Dublin  and  back  on  a  holiday 
trip.  Members  also  signed  packets  of  letters  wholesale 
and  gave  them  away  to  friends.  One  noble  lord  thereby 
franked  the  tidings  of  his  own  death.  He  died  suddenly 
at  his  desk  after  addressing  some  covers  to  friends,  and  the 
family  economically  used  the  covers  to  tell  those  friends 
that  he  had  passed  away.  Ultimately,  in  the  last  decade  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  daily  allowance  to  each  Member 
of  both  Houses  was  limited  to  ten  sent  by  himself  and  fifteen 
received  by  him.  All  such  letters  had  to  bear  on  their 
covers  the  signatures  of  those  who  franked  them.  In 
the  House  of  Commons  collection  are  to  be  seen  the  auto- 
graphs of  archbishops  and  bishops,  of  Peers  and  of  Com- 
moners, including  such  celebrities  as  Nelson,  Byron,  Canning, 
Fox,  Peel,  Palmerston,  Wellington,  Clive,  Cobbett,  Grattan, 
O'Connell  and  Gladstone.  In  the  year  1837  as  many  as 
7,400,000  franked  letters  were  posted,  at  an  estimated  loss 
to  the  revenue  of  the  Post  Office  of  over  £1,000,000.  At 
the  same  time  all  sorts  of  devices  had  to  be  resorted  to  by 
the  poor  to  evade  the  heavy  postage,  from  lOd.  to  Is.  6d., 
which  was  then  charged  for  letters.  Rowland  Hill,  the 
author  of  the  penny  postal  system,  used  to  underline  words 
in  newspapers  which  he  sent  home — a  Whig  politician's 
name  to  indicate  that  he  was  well,  and  a  Tory's  that  he 
was  ill.  Franking  was  abolished  in  1840,  on  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  penny  post.  Members,  however,  are  still 
entitled  to  the  privilege  of  sending  free  through  the  post 
a  limited  number  of  copies  of  a  Bill  to  their  constituents, 
by  endorsing  the  covering  wrapper  with  their  signatures. 

The  table  of  the  old  House  of  Commons,  which  was 
designed  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren  in  1706,  and  at  which 
Burke,  Pitt,  Fox,  Canning  and  Peel  stood  while  addressing 
the  House,  was  found  in  the  ruins,  after  the  fire  of  1834, 
almost  uninjured.     It   is   now   preserved   in   the  tea-room. 


V- 


PALACE   OF   WESTMINSTER  101 

In  one  of  the  smoking-rooms  is  to  be  seen  an  interesting 
memorial  of  Henry  Broadhurst,  one  of  the  first  of  the 
Labour  members.  In  a  glass  case  are  the  mallet  and  chisels 
used  by  him  as  a  stonemason  employed  on  the  buildings 
of  the  new  Palace  of  Westminster,  which  he  was  afterwards 
to  enter,  not  only  as  a  Member,  but  as  a  Minister,  for  he 
served  as  Under-Secretary  of  the  Home  Department  in  1886. 


The  old  Houses  of  Parliament  had  no  such  pleasant 
lounge  as  the  Terrace,  which  extends  the  whole  length  of 
the  river  front.  On  summer  nights  Members  who  desired 
a  blow  of  fresh  air  promenaded  old  Westminster  Bridge. 
"  It  was  a  beautiful,  rosy,  dead  calm  morning  when  we 
broke  up  a  little  before  five  to-day,"  wrote  Francis  Jeffrey, 
M.P.^  and  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Revieiv,  to  a  friend  on 
April*  20,  1831,  in  reference  to  a  late  and  stormy  sitting 
over  the  first  Reform  Bill,  "  and  I  took  three  pensive 
turns  along  the  solitude  of  Westminster  Bridge,  admiring 
the  sharp  clearness  of  St.  Paul's,  and  all  the  city  spires 
soaring  up  in  a  cloudless  sky,  the  orange-red  light  that  was 
beginning  to  play  on  the  trees  of  the  Abbey  and  the  old 
windows  of  the  Speaker's  house,  and  the  flat  green  mist 
of  the  river  floating  upon  a  few  lazy  hulks  on  the  tide  and 
moving  low  under  the  arches.  It  was  a  curious  contrast 
with  the  long  previous  imprisonment  in  the  stifling,  roaring 
House,  amid  dying  candles,  and  every  sort  of  exhalation." 
If  Jeffrey  could  return  from  the  Shades  and  see  the  Terrace, 
especially  on  a  fine  afternoon  in  June  or  July,  when  "  five 
o'clock  tea "  is  being  served,  how  amazed  he  would  be, 
and  how  he  would  curse  his  fate  that  he  should  have  been 
born  a  century  or  so  too  soon  !  Perhaps  ?  For  there  are 
legislators  who  think  that  "  Tea  on  the  Terrace  "  is  a  function 
lowering  to  the  dignity  of  Parliament.  A  part  of  the 
Terrace  is  reserved  for  their  sole  use  by  a  notice,  "  For 
Members  Only,"  where  they  may  ruminate  in  gloomy  aloof- 
ness undisturbed  by  the  smiles  of  beauty  and  the  rustle 
of  her  skirts. 

As  the  new  Member  explores  the  corridors  and  rooms, 


102     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

he  will  see  the  walls  hung  with  portraits  of  all  the  Prime 
Ministers,  all  the  Speakers,  and  a  long  line  of  Chancellors 
of  the  Exchequer,  besides  those  of  other  distinguished 
politicians  who  never  attained  to  office.  Apart  from  their 
innate  interest  as  counterfeit  presentments  of  great  states- 
men, in  mezzotints  or  line  engravings,  these  pictures  should 
stimulate  the  ambition  of  the  new  Member  to  make  a  name 
for  himself.  There  is  one  way  in  which  the  new  Member 
may  employ  his  leisure  at  Westminster  with  profit  to  the 
tax-payer.  That  is  to  follow  the  excellent  example  set  by 
Passmore  Edwards,  the  philanthropist,  who  sat  in  Parlia- 
ment for  a  number  of  years  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Writing  in  his  autobiography,  A  Few 
Footprints,  he  says  : 

I  would  write  the  words  "  Waste  not,  want  not  "  over  the  doors 
of  parliament  houses,  palaces,  cottages,  workshops  and  kitchens  ; 
and  if  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  the  motto  were  put  in  practice  the 
world  would  spin  through  space  with  a  double  joy.  ^Vliile  a  Member 
of  Parliament  I  always,  when  opportunity  offered,  lowered  the  gas 
within  reach  that  was  burning  to  waste.  I  did  so  for  a  double  reason — 
to  prevent  waste  and  to  preserve  the  purity  of  the  air  of  the  House  ; 
but  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  any  other  Member  or  servant  of  the  House 
doing  a  similar  thing. 

"  True  political  economy,"  Edwards  adds,  "  is  in  reality 
true  moral  economy.  I  hate  waste  anywhere  and  every- 
where." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ASSEMBLING  OF  THE  NEW  PARLIAMENT 


The  procedure  of  Parliament  is  very  ancient.  An  old- 
world  spirit  animates  especially  the  quaint  and  curious 
ceremonies  that  mark  the  assembling  of  a  new  Parliament. 
The  House  of  Commons  is  crowded.  What  a  number  of 
strange  faces  are  in  the  throng  !  It  is  easy  to  distinguish 
the  new  Members  by  the  eager  looks  of  curiosity  and  wonder, 
not  unmixed  with  triumph,  with  which  they  gaze  on  every 
feature  of  the  historic  Chamber  and  follow  every  movement 
of  the  officials,  and  the  shyness  with  which  they  cheer, 
or  indulge  in  forms  of  applause  unfamiliar  to  the  House, 
such  as  the  clapping  of  hands,  as  their  leaders  appear  and 
take  their  places  on  the  two  front  benches — the  Treasury 
Bench  on  one  side  and  the  Opposition  Bench  on  the  other. 
But  this  shyness  soon  disappears.  There  is  a  story  told 
that  an  old  Member  was  thus  addressed  by  a  new  Member 
at  the  opening  of  a  new  Parliament :  "  If  you  please,  sir, 
where  do  the  Members  for  boroughs  sit  ?  "  The  incident 
was  told  to  Disraeli,  who  was  much  diverted.  "  Yes," 
said  he,  "  and  in  three  months  we  shall  have  that  Member 
bawling  and  bellowing  and  making  such  a  row  there  will 
be  no  holding  him  !  "  At  one  time  county  Members  and 
borough  Members  were  distinct  not  only  in  class,  but  in 
manners  and  dress.  The  ancient  distinction  between  "Knight 
of  the  Shire,"  "  Citizen  of  the  City,"  "  Burgess  of  the 
Borough,"  was  removed  by  the  Ballot  Act  of  1872,  all 
representatives  being  grouped  as  "  Members  of  the  House 
of  Commons." 

As  yet  they  are  without  a  head.     They  have  no  Speaker. 

103 


104     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

In  fact,  the  House  of  Commons  has  not  yet  been  constituted. 
It  is  only  when  the  Speaker  is  elected  and  the  Members 
have  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  signed  the  Roll  that 
the  House  really  begins  its  corporate  existence.  The  first 
thing  to  be  done,  therefore,  is  for  this  throng  to  obtain 
that  coherency,  that  solidarity,  which  is  given  to  an 
assembly  by  the  appointment  of  a  president.  Until  the 
Speaker  is  elected,  the  Clerk,  sitting  in  wig  and  gown  at 
the  Table,  assumes  the  direction  of  affairs.  But  before 
the  Commons  can  appoint  a  Speaker  they  must  have  the 
consent  of  the  Sovereign,  and  that  is  given  them  at  the 
Bar  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

Suddenly  the  buzz  of  conversation,  the  interchange  of 
jokes,  and  the  laughter  which  follows,  are  stilled  by  a  sten- 
torian cry  of  "  Black  Rod."  It  comes  from  the  door- 
keeper in  the  lobby  outside.  Presently  "  Black  Rod,"  the 
messenger  of  the  House  of  Lords,  appears.  He  is  never 
allowed  free  access  to  the  House  of  Commons.  The  doors 
are  closed  in  his  face  by  the  Serjeant-at-Arms,  and  he  has 
to  knock  for  admission  before  it  is  granted  to  him.  He 
walks  slowly  up  the  floor,  carrying  in  his  right  hand  a  short 
ebony  rod  tipped  with  gold,  the  emblem  of  his  office.  On 
reaching  the  Table  "  Black  Rod "  delivers  his  message, 
which  is  an  invitation  to  the  Commons  to  come  to  the  House 
of  Lords.  Then,  retreating  backwards  down  the  floor  to 
the  Bar,  he  waits  until  joined  by  the  Clerk,  when  the  two 
officials  walk  across  the  intervening  lobbies  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  followed  by  a  struggling  crowd  of  new  Members, 
determined  not  to  miss  anything,  shoving  and  jostling  each 
other  in  their  eagerness  to  secure  good  places  in  the  "  Gilded 
Chamber." 

"  Gilded  Chamber,"  indeed  !  Gladstone's  most  appro- 
priate description  of  the  House  of  Lords  springs  at  once 
to  the  mind,  such  is  its  gorgeous  colouring  in  which  gold 
predominates,  and  its  glow  and  sparkle,  especially  when 
the  electric  lights  are  on.  The  first  thing  that  arrests  the 
eye  of  the  spectator  is  the  Throne,  provided  with  two  chairs 
for  the  King  and  Queen,  and  emblazoned  with  the  Royal 
Arms,  on  a  dais  at  the  top  of  the  Chamber.  It  is  unoccupied, 
but  seated  on  a  bench  beneath  it,  all  in  a  row,    are  five 


ASSEMBLING   OF  NEW   PARLIAMENT      105 

Lords,  arrayed  in  ample  red  robes,  slashed  with  ermine  or 
white  fur,  and  three-cornered  hats.  These  are  the  Lords 
Commissioners,  to  whom  the  King  delegates  his  authority 
in  matters  parliamentary  when  his  Majesty  is  not  present 
in  person. 

When  the  Commons,  headed  by  the  Clerk,  stand  huddled 
together  at  the  Bar,  the  Lord  Chancellor — the  central  per- 
sonage among  the  Lords  Commissioners — without  rising 
from  his  seat  or  even  lifting  his  hat  by  way  of  salutation, 
informs  them  that  his  Majesty  has  been  pleased  to  issue 
Letters  Patent  under  the  Great  Seal  constituting  a  Royal 
Commission  to  do  all  things  in  his  Majesty's  name  necessary 
to  the  holding  of  the  Parliament.  He  then  addresses  the 
Members  of  the  two  Houses  of  the  Legislature  in  the  fol- 
lowing words  : 

My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, — We  have  it  in  command  from  his 
Majesty  to  let  you  know  that  his  Majesty  will,  as  soon  as  the  Members 
of  both  Houses  shall  be  sworn,  declare  the  causes  of  his  calling  this 
Parliament  ;  and  it  being  necessary  that  a  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons  shall  be  first  chosen,  it  is  his  Majesty's  pleasure  that  you, 
gentlemen  of  the  House  of  Commons,  repair  to  the  place  where  you 
are  to  sit  and  there  proceed  to  the  choice  of  some  proper  person  to 
be  your  Speaker,  and  that  you  present  such  person  whom  you  shall 
so  choose  here  to-morrow  at  twelve  o'clock  for  his  Majesty's  Royal 
approbation. 

Then  the  Clerk  and  the  Members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, without  a  word  having  been  spoken  on  their  side, 
return  to  their  Chamber. 


The  election  of  Speaker  is  at  once  proceeded  with  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  There  is  no  ceremony  at  West- 
minster more  novel  and  interesting,  and  none  that  illustrates 
more  strikingly  the  continuity  through  the  centuries  of 
parliamentary  customs.  The  Clerk  of  the  House  of  Commons 
presides.  He  sits  in  his  own  seat  at  the  Table.  Immediately 
behind  him  is  the  untenanted  high-canopied  Chair  of  the 
Speaker.  The  Mace,  that  glittering  emblem  of  the  Speaker's 
authority,  is  invisible.     The  Clerk  may  not  speak  a  word 


106    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

in  the  discharge  of  his  duties  on  this  great  occasion.  All 
he  is  permitted  to  do  is  to  rise  and  silently  point  with  out- 
stretched linger  at  the  Member  who,  according  to  previous 
arrangement,  is  to  propose  the  candidate  for  the  Chair,  and 
later  on  to  indicate  in  the  same  dumb  way  the  Member 
who  is  to  second  the  motion.  If  there  is  to  be  no  contest, 
and  at  the  assembling  of  a  new  Parliament  the  former 
Speaker  is  invariably  re-elected  unanimously,  the  motion 
that  he  "do  take  the  Chair  of  this  House  as  Speaker  "  is 
made  by  a  leading  unofficial  Ministerialist,  and  seconded 
by  an  old  and  respected  Member  of  the  Opposition.  The 
Government  take  no  part  in  the  ceremony  so  far,  in  accord- 
ance with  an  old-established  tradition  that  the  election  or 
re-election  of  a  Speaker  is  the  independent  and  unfettered 
action  of  the  House.  The  motion  is  not  put  to  the  House 
in  the  customary  manner.  The  Clerk  does  not  say,  "  The 
question  is  that  James  William  Lowther  do  take  the  Chair 
of  this  House  as  Speaker."  The  Speaker-designate  rises  in 
his  place  on  one  of  the  back  benches  and  humbly  submits 
himself  to  the  will  of  the  House.  The  Commons  express 
their  unanimous  approval  of  the  motion  by  cheers  without 
question  put.  Thus  the  Speaker-Elect  is  literally  "  called  " 
to  the  Chair  by  the  House. 

In  one  respect  only  has  time  altered  the  symbolic  details 
of  the  ceremony.  In  the  long,  long  ago  it  was  the  custom 
for  the  Member  chosen  for  the  Chair  humbly  to  protest 
that  of  all  the  House  he  was  the  least  suited  for  the 
exalted  position.  An  amusing  instance  of  this  modest 
declaration  of  unfitness  comes  down  to  us  from  the  days 
of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  House  of  Commons  having  met 
for  the  choice  of  a  Speaker,  Mr.  Serjeant  Yelverton  was 
proposed  by  Sir  William  Knowles.  "  I  know  him,"  said 
Knowles,  "to  be  a  man  wise  and  learned,  secret  and  cir- 
cumspect, religious  and  faithful,  every  way  able  to  fill  the 
place."  "  Aye,  aye,  aye,"  cried  the  whole  House ;  "  let 
him  be  Speaker."  Then  rose  the  modest,  blushing  Yelverton. 
He  said  he  was  at  a  loss  to  account  for  his  selection  for  the 
Chair,  lacking  as  he  did  every  quality  that  was  necessary 
in  a  Speaker.  He  had  no  merit  and  no  ability.  He  was 
moreover  a  poor  man  with  a  large  family.     Nor  was  he  of 


ASSEMBLING   OF   NEW  PARLIAMENT      107 

a  sufficiently  imposing  presence.  The  Speaker  ought  to 
be  a  big  man,  stately  and  comely,  well-spoken,  his  voice 
great,  his  carriage  majestical,  his  nature  haughty,  and  his 
purse  plentiful  and  heavy.  But,  contrarily,  he  was  of  a 
small  body,  he  spoke  indifferently,  his  voice  was  low,  his 
carriage  of  the  commonest  fashion,  his  nature  soft  and 
yielding,  and  his  purse  light.  He  adjured  the  House  to 
consider  well  before  it  made  the  grievous  mistake  of 
appointing  to  the  Chair  a  man  so  totally  unfitted  for  the 
post.  But  the  House,  mightily  impressed  by  these  humble 
expostulations,  so  becoming  in  a  candidate  for  the  Speaker- 
ship, persisted  in  unanimously  electing  Mr.  Serjeant  Yelver- 
ton ;  as,  indeed,  Mr.  Serjeant  Yelverton,  despite  all  his 
protestations  of  unworthiness,  well  and  gladly  knew  they 
would  do. 

It  is  not  so  long  since  another  amusing  piece  of  comedy 
used  to  be  enacted  on  this  otherwise  serious  and  solemn 
occasion.  The  proposer  and  seconder  of  the  Speaker- 
designate  were  required  in  the  prescribed  parliamentary 
phrase  to  "  take  him  out  of  his  place  "  and  conduct  him 
to  the  Chair  ;  while  he  was  obliged  to  wriggle  his  shoulders 
as  if  he  were  struggling  to  free  himself  from  their  hands 
and  escape  from  the  House.  Surely  they  were  not  serious 
— he  meant  to  convey — in  conferring  upon  one  so  lowly 
and  unworthy  an  office  so  dignified  and  exalted  ?  This 
display  of  mock  modesty  is  now  a  thing  of  the  past.  The 
only  part  of  it  that  survives  is  that  the  proposer  and 
seconder  approach  the  Speaker-designate,  and  when  they 
are  within  a  few  paces  of  him,  the  Speaker-designate  rises 
and  walks  to  the  Chair,  his  sponsors  following  close  behind. 
The  Speaker-designate  does  not,  however,  immediately  go 
into  the  Chair.  Standing  on  the  dais,  he  again  thanks  the 
House  for  the  high  honour  conferred  on  him,  and  then  takes 
his  seat  as  "  Speaker-Elect,"  as  he  is  called  at  this  stage 
of  his  evolution.  The  glittering  Mace,  which  all  the  time 
lay  hidden  under  the  Table,  is  now  placed  by  the  Serjeant- 
at-Arms  in  its  usual  position  within  sight  of  all  eyes  to 
indicate  that  the  House  is  sitting.  Then  follow  congratu- 
lations generally  offered  by  the  Leader  of  the  House  and 
the    Leader    of   the    Opposition,    after    which    the    House 


108     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

adjourns.     The  first  day's  ceremony  of  the  opening  of  the 
new  Parliament  is  over. 


But  although  the  Commons  have  chosen  one  of  their 
number  "  to  take  the  Chair  of  this  House  as  Speaker,"  the 
Constitution  requires  that  before  he  can  enter  upon  the 
duties  of  his  office  he  must  submit  himself  in  the  House 
of  Lords  for  the  Sovereign's  ratification  of  his  election. 
Until  the  approval  of  the  Crown  has  been  signified  he  con- 
tinues to  be  styled  "  Mr.  Speaker-Elect."  Next  day  sees 
the  completion  of  the  ceremony  of  Mr.  Speaker's  election. 
He  enters  the  Chamber,  by  way  of  the  lobby,  heralded  by 
the  ushers  who  preceded  him,  crying  "  Way  for  the  Speaker- 
Elect  "  with  an  emphasis  on  "  elect,"  and  attended  by  the 
Serjeant-at-Arms.  It  is  also  evident  from  the  dress  of 
the  choice  of  the  Commons,  that  his  evolution  as  Mr.  Speaker 
is  not  yet  complete.  He  is  still,  as  it  were,  in  the  chrysalis 
or  transition  state.  He  is  seen  to  be  only  half-made  up, 
wearing,  it  is  true,  the  customary  Court  dress — cutaway 
coat,  knee-breeches,  silk  stockings,  and  shoes — but  not 
the  customary  full-flowing  silk  gown,  and  with  only  a  small 
bob-wig — that  is,  the  short  wig  of  counsel  when  practising 
in  courts  of  law — instead  of  the  customary  full-bottomed 
wig  with  wings,  which  fall  over  his  shoulders.  Further,  it 
is  noticeable  that  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  does  not  carry  the 
Mace  on  his  shoulder — as  he  usually  does — but  holds  it 
reclining  in  the  hollow  of  his  left  arm,  his  right  hand 
grasping  its  end. 

The  Lords  assemble  on  the  second  day  of  the  new  Parlia- 
ment at  the  same  hour  as  the  Commons,  and  once  more 
is  "  Black  Rod  "  despatched  to  invite  the  attendance  of 
Members  of  the  Lower  House  to  the  House  of  Peers,  to 
hear  the  Royal  will  in  regard  to  the  election  of  the  Speaker. 
On  arriving  at  the  Upper  Chamber,  the  Speaker-Elect 
stands  at  the  centre  of  the  Bar,  with  "  Black  Rod  "  to  his 
right,  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  (who  has  left  the  Mace  outside) 
to  his  left,  and  his  proposer  and  seconder  immediately 
behind  in  the  forefront  of  the  crowd  of  Commons  who  have 
followed   him  across  the  lobbies.     He  bows  to  the  Lords 


ASSEMBLING   OF   NEW   PARLIAMENT     109 

Commissioners,  who,  in  all  the  glory  of  searlet  robes  and 
cocked  hats,  are  again  seated  on  the  form  in  front  of  the 
Throne,  and  they  who  yesterday  encountered  the  Commons 
without  lifting  a  hat,  now  acknowledge  the  salutation  of 
the  Speaker-Elect  by  thrice  respectfully  bending  their 
uncovered  heads.  Then  the  Speaker-Elect  addresses  them 
as  follows  : 

I  have  to  acquaint  your  Lordships  that,  in  obedience  to  his  Royal 
commands,  his  Majesty's  faithful  Commons  have,  in  the  exercise  of 
their  undoubted  right  and  privilege,  proceeded  to  the  choice  of  a 
Speaker.  Their  choice  has  fallen  upon  myself,  and  I  therefore  present 
myself  at  your  Lordship's  Bar  humbly  submitting  myself  for  his 
Majesty's  gracious  approbation. 

To  this  the  Lord  Chancellor,  addressing  the  Speaker- 
Elect  by  name,  replies  : 

We  are  conunanded  to  assure  you  that  his  Majesty  is  so  fully  sensible 
of  your  zeal  for  the  public  service,  and  your  undoubted  efficiency 
to  execute  all  the  arduous  duties  of  the  position  which  his  faithful 
Commons  have  selected  you  to  discharge,  that  he  does  most  readily 
approve  and  confirm  your  election  as  Speaker. 

His  election  having  thus  been  ratified  by  the  Sovereign, 
Mr.  Speaker  "  submits  himself  in  all  humility  to  his 
Majesty's  royal  will  and  pleasure  "  ;  and  if,  says  he,  in 
the  discharge  of  his  duties,  and  in  maintaining  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  Commons'  House  of  Parliament,  he 
should  fall  inadvertently  into  error,  he  "  entreats  that  the 
blame  may  be  imputed  to  him  alone,  and  not  to  his 
Majesty's  faithful  Commons."  Assertions  of  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  House  of  Commons  follow  fast  on 
expressions  of  loyalty  to  the  Throne  during  the  ten  minutes 
that  the  Speaker,  surrounded  by  "  the  faithful  Commons," 
stands  at  the  Bar  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  holds  this 
significant  historical  colloquy — which  has  been  repeated 
at  every  election  of  Speaker  on  the  assembling  of  a  new 
Parliament  for  many  centuries — with  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
not  as  the  President  of  the  House  of  Lords,  but  as  the 
representative  of  the  Sovereign  ;  for  the  next  duty  of  the 
Speaker   is   to   request   from   the   Sovereign   recognition   of 


110     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

all  the  ancient  rights  and  privileges  of  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment, which  are  "  readily  granted  "  by  the  Sovereign, 
speaking  through  the  Lord  Chancellor.  This  ends  the 
ceremonial.  The  Speaker  and  the  Commons  return  to 
their  Chamber  as  they  came.  But,  see,  the  Mace  is  now 
borne  high  on  the  shoulder  of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms,  and 
hear  the  usher  announcing  "  Mr.  Speaker  "  and  "  Way  for 
Mr.  Speaker."  The  Speaker  passes  through  the  Chamber 
to  his  rooms,  and  in  a  few  minutes  comes  back  arrayed 
in  the  complete  robes  of  his  office.  Then,  standing  on  the 
dais  of  the  Chair,  he  reports  what  took  place  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  It  is  one  of  the  curious  customs  of  Parliament 
that  the  Speaker  always  assumes  that  he  has  been  to  the 
House  of  Lords  alone,  and  that  the  Commons  are  in  abso- 
lute ignorance  of  what  has  happened  there.  Without  the 
slightest  tremor  of  emotion,  or  the  faintest  indication  of 
satisfaction,  the  Commoners  learn  that  their  "  ancient 
rights  and  undoubted  privileges  "  have  been  fully  con- 
firmed, particularly  freedom  from  arrest  and  molestation, 
liberty  of  speech  in  their  debates,  and  free  access  to  the 
Sovereign.  They  know  full  well  that  if  they  do  anything 
criminal  they  may  feel  the  dread  touch  of  the  policeman 
on  their  shoulders — freedom  from  arrest  for  debt  was 
abolished  long  ago — and  they  know  also  that  even  if  they 
would  they  could  not  disturb  the  domestic  privacy  of  the 
King.  So  the  solemn  announcement  evokes  not  a  solitary 
cheer.  But  there  is  loud  applause  upon  the  Speaker  thus 
finally  concluding  :  "  I  have  now  again  to  make  my  grate- 
ful acknowledgments  to  the  House  for  the  honour  done 
to  me  in  placing  me  again  in  the  Chair,  and  to  assure  it 
of  my  complete  devotion  to  its  service."  The  ancient  and 
picturesque  ceremony  of  the  election  of  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons  is  completed. 

At  the  assembling  of  every  new  Parliament  the  Members 
for  the  City  of  London,  in  accordance  with  an  ancient 
custom,  have  the  privilege  of  sitting  on  the  Treasury  Bench 
with  the  Ministers,   though  for  the  opening  day  only.     I 


ASSEMBLING   OF   NEW   PARLIAMENT      111 

have  frequently  read  in  the  newspapers  that  this  privilege 
was  given  to  the  City  of  London  by  way  of  commemorat- 
ing the  protection  afforded  to  the  Five  Members  on  that 
historic  day,  January  4,  1642,  when  Charles  I  came  down  to 
the  House  of  Commons  to  arrest  them  for  their  opposition 
to  his  will,  and  found  to  his  discomfiture  that  '"  the  birds 
had  flown,"  to  use  his  own  words.  The  statement  is  not 
well  established.  It  is  a  singular  thing  that  no  written 
record  of  the  origin  or  existence  of  the  custom  is  to  be 
found  at  the  Guildhall  any  more  than  at  the  House  of 
Commons.  But  there  is  authority  for  saying  that  the 
right  was  exercised  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  and  over 
seventy  years  before  the  conflict  between  Charles  I  and  the 
Parliament. 

The  earliest  reference  to  it  is  contained  in  a  Report  on 
the  Procedure  of  the  English  Parliament  prepared  in  1568 
at  the  request  of  the  then  Speaker  of  the  Irish  Parliament 
by  Hooker,  a  well-known  antiquarian  of  the  time,  who  was 
a  Member  both  of  the  English  and  Irish  Parliaments.  This 
report  was  printed  and  presented  to  the  Irish  Parliament, 
and  was  reprinted  in  London  about  1575  under  the  title 
of  "  The  Order  and  Usuage  of  the  Keeping  of  a  Parliament 
in  England."  It  is  set  out  fully  in  Lord  Mountmorres's 
History  of  the  Principal  Transactions  in  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment from  1634  to  1666,  published  in  1792.  Hooker,  des- 
cribing the  seating  of  Members  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
says  : 

Upon  the  lower  row  on  both  sides  the  Speaker,  sit  such  personages 
as  be  of  the  King's  Pri\'y  Counsel,  or  of  his  Chief  Officers  ;  but  as  for 
any  other,  none  claimeth,  or  can  claim,  any  place,  but  sitteth  as  he 
Cometh,  saving  that  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Speaker  next  beneath 
the  said  Counsels,  the  Londoners  and  the  citizens  of  York  do  sit,  and 
so  in  order  should  sit  all  the  citizens  accordingly. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  representatives  of  York  as 
well  as  those  of  London  sat,  according  to  Hooker,  on  the 
Front  Bench  to  the  right  of  the  Speaker.  Probably  the 
privilege  was  conferred  upon  London  and  York  as  being 
the  first  and  second  cities  of  the  Kingdom.  But  it  seems 
clear  that  the  privilege  was  not  at  first  confined  merely  to 


112     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

the  opening  day  of  a  new  Parliament,  but  was  exercised  at 
every  sitting  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  only  other 
authoritative  statement  on  this  subject  which  I  have  found 
is  in  Oldfield's  Representative  History  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  published  in  1816.  The  passage  is  as  follows  : 
"  It  (York  City)  sends  two  Members  to  Parliament,  who 
are  chosen  by  the  freemen  in  general,  and  who  enjoy  the 
privilege  of  sitting  in  their  scarlet  gowns  next  the  Members 
for  London  on  the  Privy  Councillors'  bench  on  the  first 
day  of  the  meeting  of  every  new  Parliament."  In  1910, 
the  then  representatives  of  York,  A.  Rowntree  and  John 
Butcher,  with  a  view  to  asserting  this  privilege  in  the  same 
manner  as  it  is  asserted  by  the  representatives  of  the  City 
of  London,  laid  the  facts  before  Mr.  Speaker  Lowther. 
After  a  full  consideration  of  the  matter  he  gave  it  as  his 
opinion  that,  assuming  the  right  to  have  once  existed,  it 
must  be  considered,  in  the  absence  of  any  evidence  of  having 
been  used  in  modern  times,  to  have  lapsed,  and  could  not 
now  be  properly  claimed  or  exercised. 


On  the  morning  of  the  day  that  the  new  Parliament 
meets  for  business — the  day  on  which  the  King's  Speech 
is  read — the  corridors,  vaults  and  cellars  of  the  Palace  of 
Westminster  are  searched  to  see  that  all  is  well  with  the 
building  and  safe  for  the  King,  Lords  and  Commons  to 
assemble  within  it — a  ceremony  (for  it  is  now  only  that) 
which  is  repeated  on  the  opening  day  of  every  session. 
It  recalls  the  Gunpowder  Plot  of  Guy  Fawkes  to  blow  up 
the  Parliament  in  1605. 

The  Commons  possess  but  one  memento  of  Guy,  that 
most  notorious  of  all  anti-parliamentarians.  In  a  glass 
case  in  the  Members'  Library  may  be  seen  a  long,  narrow 
key  with  a  hinge  in  the  centre  for  folding  it  up — so  that 
it  might  be  carried  more  conveniently  in  the  pocket — which 
was  found  on  Fawkes  when  he  was  captured.  It  was  the 
key  to  the  cellar  of  gimpowdcr  extending  under  the  House 
of  Lords,  though  it  was  really  part  of  an  adjoining  empty 
house  which  the  conspirators  had  taken  for  their  purpose. 


ASSEMBLING   OF  NEW  PARLIAMENT      113 

The  custom  of  searching  the  Houses  of  Parhament  is  popu- 
larly supposed  to  date  from  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  but  it 
did  not  commence  until  eighty-five  years  later.  According 
to  a  document  preserved  in  the  House  of  Lords,  an  anony- 
mous warning  received  in  1690  by  the  Marquess  of  Car- 
marthen, setting  forth,  "  There  is  great  cause  to  judge  that 
there  is  a  second  Gunpowder  Plot,  or  some  other  such  great 
mischief,  designing  against  the  King  and  Parliament  by 
a  frequent  and  great  resort  of  notorious  ill-willers  at  most 
private  hours  to  the  house  of  one  Hutchinson  in  the  Old 
Palace  Yard,  Westminster,  situate  very  dangerous  for  such 
purpose,"  led  to  a  thorough  examination  of  the  buildings, 
and  though  nothing  was  then  found,  from  that  time  to  this 
the  search  appears  to  have  been  regularly  made  year  after 
year. 

The  search  party  consists  of  twelve  Yeomen  of  the 
Guard  from  the  Tower  in  all  the  picturesque  glory  of  their 
Tudor  uniforms,  accompanied  by  representatives  of  the 
Lord  Great  Chamberlain  and  the  Office  of  Works,  and  the 
two  police  inspectors  of  the  Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons. 
They  tramp  through  the  miles  of  corridors  and  lobbies, 
looking  carefully  into  every  nook  and  corner,  and  down  in 
the  equally  extensive  basements  they  examine  everything 
with  the  utmost  minuteness,  going  among  gas  pipes,  steam 
pipes,  hot-water  pipes,  electric-light  conductors,  to  make 
sure  that  no  explosives  have  been  deposited  there.  When 
the  search  was  first  ordered,  years  and  years  ago,  the  Yeomen 
of  the  Guard  were  directed  to  carry  lanterns  to  light  their 
way  through  the  dark  passages.  The  corridors  and  cellars 
are  now  flooded  with  electric  light.  But  the  search  party, 
still  obeying  the  old  order,  march  along  swinging  their 
lanterns.  And  still  the  solemn  function  ends  up  with 
service  of  cake  and  wine  to  the  old  Beefeaters,  and  the 
drinking  of  long  life  to  the  King,  with  a  hip-hip  hurrah  ! 
Only  in  one  respect  is  there  a  departure  from  the  old  pro- 
cedure. At  one  time  it  was  customary,  when  the  inspection 
was  over,  for  the  Lord  Great  Chamberlain  to  send  a  mounted 
soldier  with  the  message  "  All's  well  "  to  the  Sovereign. 
The  mounted  soldier  no  longer  rides  post  haste  to  the  King 
at  Buckingham  Palace  ;  but  every  year  the  Vice-Chamber- 
VOL.  I.  8 


114    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

lain  lets  his  Majesty  know,  by  private  wire,  that  every- 
thing is  ready  for  his  coming  to  meet  the  Lords  and 
Commons  in  the  House  of  Lords  to  announce  from  the 
Throne  the  business  for  which  he  has  summoned  Parlia- 
ment to  meet. 


CHAPTER   IX 

TAKING   THE   OATH   OF  ALLEGIANCE 


Let  us  linger  awhile  in  the  Upper  Chamber  to  note  what 
happens  when,  on  the  second  day  of  the  opening  of  a  new 
Parliament,  the  Commons  return  to  their  own  House, 
having  at  their  head  no  longer  a  mere  "  Speaker-Elect," 
but  a  fully-fledged  "  Mr.  Speaker,"  who  has  been  com- 
pletely evolved  from  the  chrysalis  state  by  the  magic 
influence  of  the  Royal  approbation.  As  the  noise  of  the 
retreating  feet  of  the  exultant  Commons  irreverently  breaks 
for  a  minute  or  so  the  solemn  stillness  of  the  House  of  Lords, 
the  five  Lords  Commissioners  rise  from  their  bench,  and 
with  slow,  toilsome  footsteps,  as  if  the  weight  of  their  ample 
scarlet  robes  trailing  on  the  ground  behind  them  impede 
their  progress,  disappear  behind  the  Throne.  After  a  brief 
interval  the  Lord  Chancellor  reappears,  attired  in  his  cus- 
tomary robes — which,  like  the  Speaker's,  consist  of  a  full- 
bottomed  wig  and  a  flowing  black  gown  worn  over  levee 
dress — and  takes  his  seat  on  the  Woolsack.  The  junior 
bishop  among  the  Lords  Spiritual  present  reads  the  prayers, 
while  the  peers  stand  with  bowed  and  reverent  heads. 
Then  the  process  of  swearing-in  begins.  The  Lord  Chan- 
cellor is  the  first  to  come  to  the  table  ;  and,  with  a  copy 
of  the  New  Testament  in  his  right  hand,  and  a  large  paste- 
board card  containing  the  words  of  the  oath,  in  his  left, 
he  repeats,  after  the  Clerk  of  the  Parliaments,  the  declara- 
tion that  he  will  be  faithful  and  bear  true  allegiance  to  his 
Majesty  ;  after  which  he  kisses  the  book,  and  writes  his 
name  on  the  Roll  of  Parliament.  It  is  the  first  signature 
on  the  virgin  sheet.     The  roll  is  of  a  different  kind  in  each 

115 


116     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

House.  In  the  Upper  Chamber  it  is  really  a  roll.  It 
consists  of  one  long  sheet  of  paper,  about  16  inehes  in 
width,  which  winds  round  a  roller.  The  peers  simply 
write  their  ordinary  signatures,  such  as  "  Birkenhead," 
"Morley,"   "  Rosebery,"  "Salisbury,"  or  "  Lansdowne." 

As  the  Lord  Chancellor  returns  to  the  Woolsack,  Garter 
King  of  Arms  (the  head  of  The  Heralds'  College),  appears, 
in  his  gorgeous  tabard,  emblazoned  back  and  front  with 
the  Royal  Arms  and  many  quaint  devices,  and  delivers  to 
the  Clerk  the  Roll  of  the  Lords.  The  Clerk  of  the  Crown 
in  Chancery,  wearing  wig  and  gown,  also  enters  and  pre- 
sents a  certificate  of  the  return  of  the  sixteen  representative 
Scottish  peers,  who  are  elected  for  every  new  Parliament 
by  the  peerage  of  Scotland.  Then  the  peers  come  to  the 
table  without  any  order  or  precedence  being  observed, 
and  each,  having  first  handed  over  his  writ  of  summons, 
a  small  piece  of  limp  parchment,  to  the  Clerk,  takes  the 
oath,  and  subscribes  the  Roll. 

"  Once  a  peer,  a  peer  for  life,"  it  is  said,  truly  enough, 
and  yet  every  Lord  of  Parliament  must  receive,  at  the  dis- 
solution, a  fresh  summons  from  the  Crown,  and  must  take 
a  fresh  oath  of  allegiance,  before  he  can  resume  his  legis- 
lative duties  in  the  new  Parliament.  The  writs  are  issued 
from  the  Crown  Office  at  Westminster  to  "  the  Lords 
spiritual  and  temporal  "  individually.  The  mediaeval  quaint- 
ness  of  the  summons — it  has  been  in  use  for  over  six  centuries 
— is  shown  in  its  principal  passage  : 

We  strictly  enjoining,  command  you  upon  the  faith  and  allegiance 
by  which  you  are  bound  to  Us,  that  the  weightiness  of  the  said  affairs 
and  imminent  perils  considered  (waiving  all  excuses),  you  be  at  the 
said  day  and  place  personally  present  with  Us,  and  with  the  said 
Prelates,  Great  Men,  and  Peers,  to  treat  and  give  your  council  upon 
the  affairs  aforesaid.  And  this,  as  you  regard  Us  and  Our  honour 
and  the  safety  and  defence  of  the  said  United  Kingdom  and  Church 
and  dispatch  of  the  said  affairs,  in  no  wise  do  you  omit. 

The  writ  sent  to  the  spiritual  peers  is  the  same,  save 
that  they  arc  commanded  to  attend  upon  their  "  faith  and 
love  "  instead  of  their  "  faith  and  allegiance,"  as  in  the 
case  of  the  peers  temporal.  The  Archbishops  of  Canterbury 
and  York,  and  the  Bishops  of  London,  Durham  and  Win- 


THE   OATH   OF  ALLEGIANCE         117 

Chester,  become  Lords  of  Parliament  immediately  on  their 
conseeration,  but  the  other  prelates  of  the  Church  Estab- 
lishment must  await,  in  the  order  of  seniority  of  consecra- 
tion, writs  of  summons  to  the  House  of  Lords,  according  as 
vacancies  arise  by  death  or  resignation  in  the  estate  of  the 
Lords  spiritual.  The  number  of  spiritual  peers  is  limited 
to  twenty-six,  and  as  there  are  thirty-six  dioceses  in  the 
Established  Church,  ten  of  the  prelates  are  therefore  not 
Lords  of  Parliament,  but  all  of  them — save  the  Bishop  of 
Sodor  and  Man — may  hope,  in  time,  to  have  seats  in  the 
House  of  Lords  by  succession.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that 
the  making  of  an  affirmation  instead  of  taking  the  oath 
— a  not  infrequent  occurrence  in  the  Commons — is  rarely 
to  be  seen  in  the  Lords.  The  only  time  I  have  witnessed 
it  was  when  Viscount  Morley  of  Blackburn  (better  known 
in  literature  and  politics  as  John  Morley)  came  to  the  table 
on  his  first  introduction  to  the  House  of  Lords  in  May  1908, 
and  the  Clerk  produced,  in  the  usual  course,  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  the  copy  of  the  oath.  Lord  Morley  refused  to 
be  sworn,  and  insisted  on  making  affirmation  instead.  As 
there  was  no  precedent  for  such  a  demand  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  no  form  of  affirmation  was  available  ;  but  after  a 
hurried  consultation  between  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the 
Clerk,  the  terms  of  the  oath,  with  the  appeal  to  the 
Almighty,  "  So  help  me,  God  "  omitted,  were  made  to  serve 
the  purpose. 


In  the  House  of  Commons  the  procedure  of  swearing- 
in  members  is  somewhat  different.  The  Speaker  is  the  first 
to  take  the  oath.  As  soon  as  he  returns  to  the  Chair,  in 
the  full  garb  of  his  office,  he  stands  on  the  dais,  and  repeats 
the  words  of  the  oath  after  the  Clerk.  It  is  a  very  simple 
declaration,  and  is  the  same  in  both  Houses  : 

I, ,  swear  by  Almighty  God  that  I  will  be  faithful  and 

bear  true  allegiance  to  his  Majesty  King  George,  his  heirs   and    suc- 
cessors, according  to  law.     So  help  me,  God. 

The  Speaker  then  signs  the  Test  Roll,  which,  differing 
in  form  from  the  Roll  of  Parliament  in  the  Upper  House, 


118     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

is  a  large  book  strongly  bound  in  leather,  with  brass  clasps, 
opening  at  the  bottom  instead  of  at  the  sides,  and  with 
a  sheet  of  blotting-paper  between  every  two  leaves.  A 
new  Test  Roll  is  provided  for  each  new  Parliament. 

After  the  Speaker,  Members  are  sworn-in  in  batches. 
To  expedite  matters,  two  tables  are  brought  into  the 
Chamber,  and,  being  placed  in  line  with  the  Clerk's  Table, 
are  each  supplied  with  copies  of  the  New  Testament  and 
five  large  paste-boards,  on  which  the  oath  is  printed  in 
bold  type.  At  each  table  one  of  the  clerks-assistant  stands, 
and  administers  the  oath  to  the  Members,  as  they  present 
themselves  in  groups  of  five,  two  or  three  holding  between 
them  a  Testament,  and  each  having  in  his  left  hand  one 
of  the  oath-cards,  the  words  of  which  they  repeat,  and  then 
kiss  the  book.  The  first  to  take  the  oath  and  sign  the  roll 
after  the  Speaker  are  the  Leader  of  the  House  and  the  Leader 
of  the  Opposition.  Members  of  "  his  Majesty's  most 
honourable  Privy  Council,"  and  the  Ministers,  past  and 
present,  next  have  precedence,  and  take  the  oath  separately 
from  the  other  Members. 

In  the  Lords,  as  we  have  seen,  each  peer,  before  taking 
the  oath  and  subscribing  the  Roll,  gives  the  Clerk  his  writ 
of  summons.  But  in  the  Commons  no  proof  of  identity — 
no  evidence  that  they  are  duly  elected  M.P.'s — is  required 
from  the  gentlemen  that  present  themselves  at  the  Table 
to  take  the  oath  and  subscribe  the  Test  Roll.  It  is  true 
that  the  Clerk  of  the  Crown  in  Chancery  receives  at  his 
office  at  Westminster  from  the  returning  officer  of  every 
constituency  what  is  called  the  return  of  the  writ — that  is, 
actually  the  writ  of  election,  with  the  name  of  the  elected 
representative  certified  on  the  back — and  that  the  names 
of  the  Members,  with  the  constituency  each  represents,  are 
inscribed  in  a  book,  called  the  "  Return  Book,"  which  is 
delivered  by  the  Clerk  of  the  Crown  to  the  Clerk  of  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  day  the  new  Parliament  opens. 

But  though  ordinarily  all  the  approaches  to  the  Chamber 
are  guarded  by  vigilant  policemen  and  doorkeepers,  who 
know  every  Member  of  tlie  Llouse,  it  is  obviously  impossible 
at  the  opening  of  a  new  Parliament — when  there  is  a  large 
influx    of   new  Members — for   the    officials   on  duty  to  be 


THE   OATH   OF   ALLEGIANCE         119 

able  to  discriminate  between  those  who  say  they  are  repre- 
sentatives and  those  who  may  be  strangers.  It  would  not 
be  diflicult,  therefore,  for  an  impostor  of  nerve  and  audacity, 
with  some  knowledge  of  the  House  and  its  ways,  to  enter 
the  House  by  personating  some  Member  whom  he  knew 
could  not  be  in  attendance,  to  vote  in  a  division  on  the 
Speakership,  should  there  be  a  contest  for  the  Chair,  and 
even  to  take  the  oath  and  subscribe  the  Roll.  There  is 
no  case  of  personation  on  record,  but  it  is  possible  in  the 
circumstances.  The  Return  Book  is  a  conspicuous  object 
on  the  Table  during  the  swearing-in  of  Members.  It  is 
there  for  reference  by  the  Clerk,  in  the  event  of  a  question 
arising  as  to  the  identity  of  any  person  who  may  present 
himself.  However,  as  it  contains  merely  the  name  of  each 
Member  and  his  constituency,  and  not  his  portrait  and 
description,  it  is  hardly  an  insuperable  bar  to  personation, 
and  accordingly,  in  the  case  of  new  Members,  the  question 
of  identity  has  to  be  taken  on  trust  by  the  Clerk.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that  a  Member  who  for  any  reason  did 
not  want  to  take  the  oath  could  quite  easily  evade  the 
obligation. 


In  the  case  of  a  contested  election  for  the  Speakership, 
Members  would  of  course  have  to  vote  without  having  been 
sworn.  What,  it  may  be  asked,  would  happen  in  the  event 
of  a  Member,  after  the  election  of  the  Speaker,  sitting  and 
voting  without  having  taken  the  oath  and  signed  the  Roll  ? 
The  penalties  provided  by  an  Act  passed  in  1866  are  a  fine 
of  £500  for  each  commission  of  the  offence  of  voting, 
and  the  immediate  deprivation  of  the  seat,  which,  ipso  facto, 
becomes  vacant.  The  payment  of  the  fines,  when  the  offence 
has  been  committed  through  mistake,  ignorance,  or  inadvert- 
ence, can  be  remitted  by  an  Act  of  Indemnity,  but  it  is 
contended  that  nothing  can  avoid  the  instant  vacating  of 
the  seat.  I  remember  hearing  it  persistently  whispered 
that  one  Member  elected  at  a  certain  General  Election 
had  never  taken  the  oath  or  signed  the  Roll.  The  matter, 
however,  was  never  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  House.  A 
peer  who  takes  his  seat  and  votes  without  having  previously 


120     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

subscribed  to  the  oath  is  Hkewise  liable  for  every  such 
vote  to  a  penalty  of  £500.  Peers  have  so  inadvertently 
violated  the  law.  Each  explained  that  having  taken  the 
oath  and  signed  the  Roll  on  his  accession  to  the  peerage 
he  thought  he  was  not  obliged  to  do  so  again  when  a  new 
Parliament  assembled.  This  excuse  was  accepted  in  the 
case  of  four  peers  in  1906.  Bills  of  Indemnity  were  then 
said  to  be  no  longer  necessary. 

The  swearing-in  of  Members  returned  to  the  House  of 
Commons  at  the  General  Election  of  1918 — the  first  after 
the  World  War — had  one  new  feature.  It  was  introduced 
owing  to  changes  in  the  law  of  election  made  by  the  Reform 
Act  of  1918.  It  is  provided  by  that  Act  that  a  candidate 
must  lodge  £150  with  the  returning  officer  at  his  nomination, 
which  sum  is  not  given  back  until  the  returning  officer  is 
officially  informed  that  the  candidate,  if  elected,  has  taken 
the  oath  and  signed  the  Roll.  Accordingly,  to  provide  a 
means  of  ready  discovery  as  to  whether  a  particular  Member 
had  or  had  not  subscribed  to  the  oath,  two  clerks  sat  at  the 
Table,  with  printed  lists  of  the  names  and  constituencies, 
which  they  ticked  off  as  the  name  and  the  constituency 
of  each  Member  was  announced  by  the  Clerk  of  the  House 
in  the  course  of  the  introduction  of  the  Member  to  the 
Speaker. 


As  Members  take  the  oath,  they  proceed,  in  single  file, 
to  subscribe  the  Test  Roll,  over  which  the  Clerk  stands 
sentinel.  Each  Member  writes  his  full  name  and  that  of 
his  constituency.  He  is  then  introduced  by  the  Clerk  to 
the  Speaker,  who  shakes  hands  with  him.  So  the  process 
of  swearing-in  goes  on  for  two  or  three  days.  It  is  slow 
and  tedious  work,  and  the  House  is  not  a  lively  place  while 
it  is  in  progress.  Occasionally  a  special  incident  relieves 
the  tedium  of  the  proceedings.  Some  Members  claim  to 
make  an  affirmation  instead  of  being  sworn,  on  the  ground 
that  he  has  no  religious  belief,  or  that  the  taking  of  an  oath 
is  contrary  to  his  religious  belief.  The  affirmation  is  in 
the  same  form  as  the  oath,  except  that  the  words  "  Solemnly, 
sincerely  and  truly  declare  and  affirm  "  are  substituted  for 


THE    OATH   OF   ALLEGIANCE         121 

the  word  "  swear,"  and  the  words,  "  So  help  me,  God  " 
are  omitted.  These  have  to  sign  their  names  on  a  different 
part  of  the  Test  Roll.  It  is  no  unusual  thing  either  to  see 
a  Member,  wearing  his  hat,  sworn  on  a  book  provided  by 
himself.  He  belongs  to  the  Jewish  persuasion,  which 
requires  the  oath  to  be  taken  with  covered  head  on  a  copy 
of  the  Pentateuch,  or  first  five  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Others  prefer  to  swear  with  uplifted  hand  instead  of  by 
kissing  the  New  Testament.  The  oath  is  administered  in 
about  a  minute  to  each  batch.  It  is  in  signing  the  Test 
Roll  that  time  is  consumed.  The  Member  who  has  not 
his  glasses  adjusted,  or  who  searches  on  the  Table  for  the 
pen  that  suits  him  best,  with  which  to  inscribe  his  name 
on  the  roll  of  fame  in  bold  and  lasting  caligraphy,  may 
block  a  group  anxious  to  get  to  the  lunch-rooms  or  smoking- 
rooms,  and  may  prove  the  same  kind  of  nuisance  to  his 
fellows  as  the  man  who  wants  to  change  a  five-pound  note 
at  the  railway  booking-office,  though  there  is  a  long  and 
impatient  queue  behind,  and  the  train  is  on  the  point  of 
starting. 


CHAPTER  X 

MR.   SPEAKER 


As  "  Mr.  Speaker  "  does  not  speak  in  the  debates,  the  title 
of  the  President  of  the  House  of  Commons  appears,  at  first 
sight,  paradoxical.  The  original  function  of  the  office  was 
to  sum  up,  like  the  Judge  at  a  trial,  the  arguments  of  both 
sides  at  the  close  of  a  debate.  "  If  any  doubt  arise  upon 
a  Bill,"  says  an  Order  passed  in  1604,  "  the  Speaker  to 
explain,  but  not  to  sway  the  House  with  argument  or 
dispute."  Mr.  Speaker  had  also  to  "  speak  "  the  views  of 
the  House  in  its  contentions  with  the  Crown,  about  supplies 
and  taxes,  before  the  Revolution  of  1688. 

The  duties  of  the  Speaker  to-day  are  not  so  anxious  or 
troublesome.  The  occasions  on  which  he  conveys  the  views 
or  desires  of  the  Commons  to  the  Sovereign,  or  his  repre- 
sentatives, the  Lords  Commissioners  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
are  rare,  and  always  formal  or  ceremonious.  He  has  been 
relieved  long  since  of  the  invidious  task  of  summing  up  a 
debate  in  which  the  contending  parties  had  argued  out  their 
differences.  His  duties  are  now  more  appropriate  to  his 
office,  as  controller  and  guide  of  a  deliberative  Assembly. 
He  keeps  the  talk  strictly  to  the  subject  of  discussion.  He 
decides  points  of  order.  He  interprets  the  rules  of  the  House. 
He  is  ever  ready  to  assist  Members  in  doubt  or  difficulty 
about  a  question,  a  motion  or  a  Bill.  He  guards  with  jealous 
care  the  authority,  honour  and  dignity  of  the  House.  He  is 
most  concerned  with  the  maintenance  of  its  great  traditions 
of  good  order,  decorum,  and  freedom  of  opinion. 

Above  all,  Mr.  Speaker  must  be  scrupulously  fair,  abso- 
lutely just,  in  rulings  which  may  affect  any  of  the  political 


MR.    SPEAKER  123 

sections  of  the  Assembly.  For  the  most  precious  attribute 
of  the  Chair  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  impartiahty.  The 
Speaker,  hke  the  King,  is  supposed  to  have  no  poHtics. 
That  has  become  almost  a  recognized  constitutional  principle. 
Of  course,  he  is  returned  to  the  House  originally  as  a  supporter 
of  one  or  other  of  the  political  parties.  It  follows  also  that 
on  his  first  appointment  to  the  Chair  he  is  necessarily  the 
choice,  or  the  nominee,  of  the  political  Party  which  at  the 
time  is  supreme.  The  Chair  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
when  vacated  by  resignation  or  death,  has  always  been 
considered  the  legitimate  prize  of  the  Party  then  in  office 
or  in  power.  Accordingly  the  Speaker  has  invariably  been 
chosen  from  the  ranks  of  the  Ministerialists.  All  the  Speakers 
of  the  nineteenth  century — Sir  Henry  Addington,  Sir  John 
Freeman-Mitford,  Charles  Abbot,  Charles  Manners-Sutton, 
James  Abereromby,  Charles  Shaw-Lefevre,  John  Evelyn 
Denison,  Henry  Bouverie  Brand,  Arthur  WellesleyPeel  and 
William  Court  Gully — were  so  chosen  and  appointed,  and 
so  was  James  William  Lowther,  the  first  Speaker  elected 
in  the  twentieth  century.  But  whether  the  Speaker  is  first 
designated  by  the  Government,  or,  in  case  of  a  division,  is 
carried  by  the  majority  of  the  Government,  when  he  is  being 
conducted  by  his  proposer  and  seconder  from  his  place  on 
the  benches  to  the  Chair,  he,  as  it  were,  doffs  his  Party 
colours,  be  they  buff  or  blue,  and  wears,  instead,  the  white 
flower  of  a  neutral  political  life  ;  and,  once  in  the  Chair,  he 
is  regarded  as  the  choice  of  the  whole  House,  from  which 
his  authority  is  derived  and  of  which,  to  use  the  ancient 
phrase,  he  is  "  the  mouth."  Henceforth  he  sits  above  all 
Parties.  As  Speaker  he  has  no  political  opinions.  So  he 
remains  Speaker — being  re-elected  unanimously  at  the  first 
meeting  of  each  new  Parliament — until  he  decides  to  resign 
or  is  removed  by  death.  This  concurrence  of  both  sides 
in  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Speaker  adds  immensely  to  his 
judicial  independence  in  presiding  over  the  Party  conflicts 
which  are  waged  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Once  only  has  a  Speaker  been  dismissed  on  the  assembling 
of  a  new  Parliament  because  he  was  supposed  to  be  hostile 
to  the  Party  which  came  back  from  the  comitry  in  a  majority. 
This  was  Charles  Manners-Sutton.     A  Tory  himself,  he  was 


124    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

the  nominee  of  the  Tory  Administration  in  office  at  the 
resignation  of  Charles  Abbot  in  1817.  The  moderate  Con- 
servatives and  Whigs  put  forward  Charles  William  Wynn. 
His  brother,  Sir  Watkin  Wynn,  who  was  also  in  the  House, 
and  he  were  known  as  "  Bubble  and  Squeak,"  on  account 
of  the  peculiarity  of  their  voices.  Indeed,  Canning  thought 
the  only  objection  to  Wynn  as  a  candidate  for  the  Chair 
was  that  Members  might  be  tempted  to  address  him  as 
"  Mr.  Squeaker."  However,  Manners-Sutton  was  elected  by 
the  large  majority  of  160  ;  and  in  accordance  with  pre- 
cedent he  was  reappointed  to  the  position  after  General 
Elections  in  1819,  1820,  1826,  1830  and  1831.  In  July  1832, 
during  the  struggle  over  the  great  Reform  Bill,  he  intimated 
his  wish  to  retire  at  the  close  of  the  Parliament.  A  vote 
of  thanks  for  his  services  was  unanimously  passed,  on  the 
motion  of  Lord  Althorp,  the  Whig  Leader  of  the  House, 
an  annuity  of  £4,000  was  granted  to  him,  and  one  of  £3,000, 
after  his  death,  to  his  heir  male.  But  the  Whig  Ministers, 
returned  again  to  power  at  the  General  Election  which  followed 
the  passing  of  the  Reform  Act,  were  apprehensive  that  a 
new  and  inexperienced  Speaker  would  be  unable  to  control 
the  first  reformed  Parliament  in  which,  it  was  feared,  there 
might  be  discordant  and  unruly  elements,  and  they  induced 
Manners-Sutton  to  consent  to  occupy  the  Chair  for  some 
time  longer.  The  Radicals,  however,  decided  to  oppose  his 
re-election.  Accordingly,  at  the  meeting  of  the  new  Parlia- 
ment on  January  29,  1833,  after  Manners-Sutton  had  been 
proposed  by  Lord  Morpeth  and  seconded  by  Sir  Erancis 
Burdett,  both  Whigs,  Edward  John  Littleton  was  put  up 
in  opposition  to  him  by  Joseph  Hume  and  Daniel  O'Connell. 
A  division  was  taken,  and  Littleton  was  rejected  by  241 
votes  to  31,  or  the  enormous  majority  of  210.  Thereupon 
Charles  Manners-Sutton  was  declared  elected  Speaker 
unanimously. 

When  a  new  Parliament  next  assembled,  on  February  19, 
1835,  the  Tories  were  in  office,  the  Whigs  having  been 
summarily  dismissed  by  William  IV  ;  but,  as  the  result  of 
the  General  Election  which  followed,  a  majority  of  Whigs 
confronted  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Prime  Minister,  in  the  House 
of    Commons,    determined    to    fight    him    on    every    issue. 


MR.    SPEAKER  125 

Charles  Manncrs-Sutton  was  again  nominated  for  the  Chair, 
this  time  his  proposer  and  seconder  being  Tories.  That  he 
was  a  staunch  Tory  everybody  was  well  aware.  But  he  was 
charged  with  overt  acts  of  partisanship,  in  breach  of  the 
principle  that  as  Speaker  he  was  bound  to  be  absolutely 
impartial.  It  was  said  that  he  had  been  concerned  in  the 
Tory  opposition  to  the  reform  of  Parliament,  and  had, 
in  fact,  tried  to  constitute  an  anti-Reform  Administration 
himself.  It  was  further  said  that  he  had  helped  in  the 
overthrow  of  the  late  Whig  Government,  and  that,  had  the 
Tories  been  successful  at  the  polls,  he  would  have  been 
appointed  to  high  office  in  Peel's  Cabinet.  Though  he 
denied  these  charges,  the  Whigs  as  a  Party  opposed  his 
re-election  to  the  Chair  ;  and  their  nominee,  James  Aber- 
cromby,  was  carried  in  a  most  exciting  contest  by  the  narrow 
majority  of  10,  or  by  316  votes  to  306.  "  Such  a  division 
was  never  known  before  in  the  House  of  Commons,"  writes 
Charles  Greville  in  his  Memoirs.  "  Much  money  was  won 
and  lost.     Everybody  betted.     I  won  S.55.^'' 


Lord  John  Russell,  speaking  in  the  1835  debate,  said  the 
House  of  Commons  was  under  no  obligation  in  a  new  Parlia- 
ment to  re-elect  the  Speaker,  unless  he  had  won  for  himself 
the  confidence  and  esteem  not  of  his  own  Party  alone, 
but  of  the  general  body  of  Members.  Even  so,  no  attempt 
has  since  been  made  to  depose  a  Speaker  on  Party  grounds, 
even  when  a  General  Election  has  upset  the  balance  of 
Parties  in  the  House  of  Commons.  On  the  retirement  of 
Abercromby  in  May  1839,  the  Whigs,  being  still  in  office, 
nominated  Charles  Shaw-Lefevre ;  the  Tories  ran  Henry 
Goulburn,  and  the  former  was  elected  by  a  majority  of  18, 
or  by  317  votes  against  299.  The  General  Election  of  1841 
resulted  in  a  change  of  Government.  The  Melbourne 
Administration,  which  elected  Shaw-Lefevre  to  the  Chair, 
was  overthrown  at  the  polls,  and  the  Tories  came  back 
with  a  large  majority.  Many  of  the  victors  in  the  electoral 
contest  were  disposed  to  follow  the  example  set  by  their 
opponents   in    1835,    and   make   a   Party   question   of  the 


126     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Speakership  of  the  new  ParHament.  But  their  leader  and 
Prime  Minister,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  refused  to  countenance 
this  line  of  action.  "  I  do  not  think  it  necessary,"  said  he, 
in  a  speech  supporting  the  re-election  of  Shaw-Lefevre  in 
August  1841,  "  that  the  person  elected  to  the  Chair,  who 
has  ably  and  conscientiously  performed  his  duty,  should  be 
displaced  because  his  political  opinions  are  not  consonant 
with  those  of  the  majority  of  the  House."  The  re-election 
of  Shaw-Lefevre  was,  accordingly,  unanimous.  Peel's  wise 
view  of  the  Speakership  has  since  prevailed.  The  continuity 
of  the  office  has  not  been  broken  since  the  dismissal  of 
Manners-Sutton  in  1835.  John  Evelyn  Denison  was  unani- 
mously chosen  to  succeed  Shaw-Lefevre  in  1857,  Henry 
Bouverie  Brand  to  succeed  Denison  in  1872,  and  Arthur 
Wellesley  Peel  to  succeed  Brand  in  1884.  The  Whigs,  or 
Liberals,  were  in  office  on  each  occasion  that  the  Speakership 
became  vacant  by  resignation  in  those  years.  And  the 
Conservatives,  on  their  return  to  power,  reappointed 
Denison  in  1866,  Brand  in  1874,  and  Peel  in  1886. 

The  circumstances  attending  the  election  of  William 
Court  Gully  as  Speaker  gave  both  to  the  principle  that  the 
Chair  is  above  the  strife  and  the  prejudices  of  Party,  and 
the  precedent  of  its  occupant's  continuity  of  office,  an 
accession  of  strength  which  perhaps  makes  them  stable 
and  decisive  for  all  time.  Gully  had  sat  in  the  House  as  a 
Liberal  for  ten  years  when,  on  the  retirement  of  Peel  in 
May  1895,  he  was  nominated  for  the  Chair  by  the  Liberal 
Government.  The  Unionist  Opposition  proposed  Sir  Matthew 
W^hite  Ridley,  a  highly  respected  member  of  their  Party, 
and  a  man  of  long  and  varied  experience  in  parliamentary 
affairs.  On  a  division  Gully  was  elected  by  the  narrow 
majority  of  11.  The  voting  was  :  Gully,  285  ;  White 
Ridley,  274.  It  was  publicly  declared  at  the  time  that, 
as  the  Unionists  had  disapproved  the  candidature  of  Gully, 
they  held  themselves  free  to  put  a  nominee  of  their  own  in 
the  Chair  should  they  have  a  majority  in  the  next  new 
Parliament.  A  few  weeks  later  the  Liberal  Government  was 
defeated  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  a  dissolution  followed. 
It  is  the  custom  to  allow  the  Speaker  a  walk-over  in  his 
constituency  at  the  General  Election.     But  Gully's  seat  at 


MR.    SPEAKER  127 

Carlisle  was  on  this  occasion  contested,  and  his  Unionist 
opponent  received  from  Arthur  Balfour,  then  Leader  of  the 
Unionist  Party,  a  letter  warmly  endorsing  his  candidature 
and  wishing  him  success.  In  his  address  to  the  constituents 
Gully  made  no  reference  to  politics.  As  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  could  have  nothing  to  say  to  Party 
controversy.  Like  his  predecessors,  he  recognized  that  a 
Speaker  cannot  descend  into  the  rough  strife  of  the  electoral 
battle,  not  even  to  canvass  the  electors,  without  impairing 
the  independence  and  the  dignity  of  the  Chair  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  contest  ended  in  his  re-election  by  a 
substantial  majority. 

The  Unionists  came  back  triumphant  from  the  country. 
There  was  still  a  feeling  in  the  Party,  though  not,  indeed, 
prevailing  to  any  wide  extent,  that  the  Speaker  of  the 
new  Parliament  should  be  chosen  from  its  ranks.  It  was 
pointed  out  that  for  sixty  years  there  had  not  been  a  Con- 
servative Speaker — Manners-Sutton  having  been  the  last — 
and,  apart  altogether  from  the  legitimate  ambition  of  the 
Conservatives  to  have  a  Speaker  of  their  own  way  of  think- 
ing, it  was  argued  that  in  building  up  the  body  of  precedents 
which  guide,  if  they  do  not  control,  the  duties  of  the  Chair, 
Conservative  opinion  ought  to  have  its  proper  share,  if  these 
precedents  are  truly  to  reflect  the  sense  of  the  House  generally. 
But  tradition  and  practice  in  the  House  of  Commons  were 
too  powerful  to  be  overborne.  At  the  meeting  of  the  new 
Parliament,  in  August  1895,  Gully  was  unanimously  re- 
elected to  the  Chair.  The  aloofness  and  supremacy  of  the 
Speakership  has  one  fine  effect.  It  gives  to  the  House, 
despite  its  Party  divisions,  an  ennobling  sense  of  national 
unity. 

3 

The  Speaker  forfeits — actually,  though  perhaps  not 
theoretically — his  rights  as  the  representative  of  a  con- 
stituency in  the  House.  He  is  disqualified  from  speaking  in 
the  debates  and  voting  in  the  divisions.  The  constituency 
which  he  represents  is,  therefore,  in  a  sense  disfranchised. 
But  there  is  no  record  of  a  constituency  ever  having  objected 
to  its  representative   being  made   Speaker.      No   doubt   it 


128     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

appreciates  the  distinction.  Formerly  it  was  customary  for 
the  Speaker  to  join  in  the  debates  and  divisions  when  the 
House  was  in  Committee,  he  having  left  the  Chair,  and  the 
proceedings  being  presided  over  by  the  Chairman.  In 
Committee  on  the  Bill  for  the  Union  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  Mr.  Speaker  Addington,  on  February  12,  1799, 
declared  that,  while  he  was  in  favour  of  the  plan,  he  was 
strongly  opposed  to  Catholic  emancipation  with  which  Pitt 
was  disposed  to  accompany  it.  If  it  were  a  question,  he 
said,  between  the  re-enactment  of  all  the  Popery  laws  for 
the  repression  of  Ireland,  or  the  Union,  coupled  with  Catholic 
emancipation,  for  the  pacification  of  Ireland,  he  would  prefer 
the  former.  Again,  during  the  Committee  stage  of  the  Bill 
introduced  by  Henry  Grattan,  in  1813,  to  qualify  Roman 
Catholics  for  election  as  Members  of  Parliament,  an  amend- 
ment to  omit  the  vital  words,  "  to  sit  and  vote  in  either 
House  of  Parliament,"  was  moved  by  Mr.  Speaker  Abbot 
(strongly  opposed,  like  Addington,  to  the  removal  of  the 
Catholic  disabilities),  and  having  been  carried  by  a  majority, 
though  only  a  small  one  of  four  votes,  proved  fatal  to  the 
measure.  Manners-Sutton  also  exercised  his  right  to  speak 
in  Committee  three  times  on  such  highly  controversial 
questions  as  Catholic  emancipation  and  the  claims  of 
Dissenters  to  be  admitted  to  the  Universities,  to  both  of 
which  he,  like  his  predecessors  in  the  Chair,  answered  an 
uncompromising  "  No." 

But  so  high  has  the  Chair  of  the  House  of  Commons 
been  since  lifted  above  the  conilicts  of  politics,  that  partisan- 
ship so  aggressive  would  not  now  be  tolerated  in  the  Speaker. 
On  the  last  two  occasions  that  a  Speaker  interested  himself 
in  proceedings  in  Committee,  the  questions  at  issue  had  no 
relation  whatever  to  Party  politics.  In  1856  Shaw-Lefevre 
spoke  in  defence  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  British 
Museum,  of  which  he  was  a  member.  In  1870  Evelyn 
Denison  voted  to  exempt  horses  employed  on  farms  from 
a  licence  duty  which  was  proposed  in  the  Budget.  This  was 
the  last  occasion  that  a  Speaker  in  wig  and  gown  passed 
through  the  division  lobby  to  record  his  vote,  and  it  is 
probable  that  never  again  will  a  Speaker  speak  or  vote  in 
Committee.     Indeed,  Mr.  Speaker  Gully  directed   that   his 


MR.    SPEAKER  129 

name  should  be  removed  from  the  printed  lists  supplied  to 
the  clerks  in  the  division  lobbies  for  the  purpose  of  recording 
how  members  voted.  The  only  vote  which  a  Speaker  now 
gives  is  a  casting  vote,  should  the  numbers  on  each  side 
in  a  division  be  equal.  It  is  the  custom  for  the  Speaker  to 
give  his  casting  vote  in  such  a  way  as  to  avoid  making  the 
decision  final — thus  giving  the  House  another  opportunity  of 
considering  the  question — and  to  state  his  reasons,  which 
are  entered  in  the  Journals. 

Occasions  for  the  Speaker's  casting  vote  rarely  arise. 
Peel  was  called  upon  to  give  it  but  once  during  his  eleven 
years  of  office  ;  that  was  on  the  IMarriages  Confirmation 
(Antwerp)  Bill  in  July,  1887.  The  object  of  the  measure 
was  to  confirm  marriages  solemnized  at  Antwerp  by  a 
Dr.  Potts,  chaplain  to  a  British  and  American  chapel  from 
1880  to  1884,  the  invalidity  of  which  was  caused  by  a 
technicality.  The  tie  was  a  motion  to  adjourn  the  debate, 
and  Mr.  Speaker  Peel  gave  his  casting  vote  for  the  adjourn- 
ment. Gully's  experience  in  this  respect  was  singular. 
On  the  sole  occasion  he  was  called  upon  to  give  his  casting 
vote  no  tie  really  existed.  It  was  on  May  11,  1899,  in  con- 
nection with  the  second  reading  of  the  Vehicles  (Lights) 
Bill.  "  The  tellers  for  the  Ayes  and  the  Noes  came  up  to 
the  Table  almost  at  the  same  time,"  said  Gully,  describing 
the  incident.  "  One  of  the  tellers  gave  his  number  as  forty, 
and  the  teller  for  the  Ayes  was  then  turned  to  and  asked 
his  number.  In  point  of  fact  the  teller  for  the  Ayes  had 
succeeded  by  a  majority  of  three.  His  number  should  have 
been  forty-three,  but  he  was  so  elated  at  hearing  of  a  victory 
which  he  had  not  expected  that  at  the  moment  he  only 
repeated  what  the  other  Member  had  said,  and  he  said 
'  forty,'  whereupon  there  was  a  tie.  I  then  gave  my  vote 
for  the  Ayes,  doing  that  which  a  Speaker  always  did  on  such 
occasions,  although  I  do  not  think  I  had  formed  any  opinion 
at  all  upon  the  Bill.  Still,  in  doing  what  I  did  I  pursued 
the  proper  course,  because  it  gave  the  opportunity  on  the 
third  reading  for  the  expression  of  a  decided  opinion  on  the 
Bill." 


VOL.  I. 


CHAPTER   XI 

**  ORDER,   ORDER  !  " 


What  are  the  qualities,  then,  which  make  a  successful 
President  of  the  representative  Chamber  ?  "Go  and  assemble 
yourselves  together,  and  elect  one,  a  discreet,  wise,  and 
learned  man,  to  be  your  Speaker."  Such  were  the  words 
a  Lord  Chancellor  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  addressed  to 
a  new  House  of  Commons.  The  order  in  which  the  qualities 
deemed  essential  for  the  Speaker  are  arranged  is  not  without 
its  significance.  Discretion  comes  first.  It  might  be  given 
the  second  place  and  the  third  also.  Marked  ability  is 
by  no  means  indispensable  in  a  Speaker.  Intellectually  his 
duties  are  not  searching.  But  undoubtedly  in  the  twentieth 
century,  as  in  the  sixteenth,  the  faculty  which  is  of  the 
highest  importance  in  the  art  of  the  Speakership  is  sagacity, 
prudence,  circumspection — making  allowances  for  the  weak- 
nesses and  eccentricities  of  human  nature. 

John  Evelyn  Denison  had  sat  in  the  House  for  more 
than  thirty  years  when,  in  1857,  he  was  chosen  Speaker. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  awed  by  the  responsibilities  of  the 
Chair.  In  such  a  position  timorousness  or  irresolution 
would  be  fatal.  To  Denison  the  prospect  was  not  made  less 
formidable  by  the  reply  which  he  got  from  his  predecessor 
on  inquiring  whether  there  was  anyone  to  whom  he  could 
go  for  advice  and  assistance  on  trying  occasions.  "  No  one," 
said  Shaw-Lcfcvre ;  "  you  must  learn  to  rely  entirely  upon 
yourself."  "  And,"  proceeds  Denison  in  his  Diartjy  "  I 
found  this  to  be  very  true.  Sometimes  a  friend  would  hasten 
to  the  Chair  and  offer  advice.  I  must  say,  it  was  for  the 
most  part  lucky  I  did  not  follow  the  advice.     I  spent  the  first 

130 


**  ORDER,    ORDER  !  "  131 

few  years  of  my  Speakership  like  the  captain  of  a  steamer 
on  the  Thames,  standing  on  the  paddle-box,  ever  on  the  look- 
out for  shocks  and  collisions."  But  these  "  shocks  and 
collisions  "  are  rarely  uncommon  or  unfamiliar.  The  House 
of  Commons  has  not  had  a  life  and  growth  of  several  centuries 
without  providing  an  abundance  of  precepts  and  examples 
for  the  guidance  of  its  Speaker.  Very  little  happens  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  has  not  happened  there  often 
before.  Almost  every  contingency  that  can  possibly  arise  is 
covered  by  a  precedent,  and  if  a  Speaker  be  but  acquainted 
with  the  forms  and  procedure  of  the  House  and  the  rulings 
of  his  predecessors,  both  of  which  hedge  his  course,  he  cannot 
go  far  astray.  Nor  is  it  the  fact  that  there  is  no  one  to  whom 
he  can  go  for  advice.  It  is  the  custom  for  Members  to  give 
the  Speaker  private  notice  of  questions  on  points  of  order  ; 
unless,  of  course,  such  as  spring  up  unexpectedly  in  debate  ; 
and  for  aid  in  the  decision  of  these  questions  the  Speaker  has 
not  only  the  clerks  who  sit  at  the  Table  below  him  to  refer 
to,  if  necessary,  as  to  custom  and  procedure,  but  also  a 
counsel  outside  to  direct  him  on  points  of  law.  "  I  used 
to  study  the  business  of  the  day  carefully  every  morning," 
says  Denison,  "  and  consider  what  questions  could  arise 
upon  it.  Upon  these  questions  I  prepared  myself  by  referring 
to  the  rules,  or,  if  needful,  to  precedents."  It  is  also  the 
practice  for  the  clerks  to  have  an  audience  with  the  Speaker 
every  day  before  the  House  meets,  to  draw  his  attention 
to  points  of  order  that  are  likely  to  arise,  and  to  confer 
with  him  generally  on  the  business  of  the  day.  Therefore 
it  is  a  rare  experience  for  the  Speaker  to  be  brought  suddenly 
face  to  face  with  an  unprecedented  situation.  And  in  such 
a  difficulty  he  has  the  advantage  of  being  able,  as  the  supreme 
authority  in  the  House,  to  impose  his  ruling  unquestioned 
on  all  concerned,  even  should  he  have  gone  beyond  his  exact 
functions  and  powers  as  the  director  of  debate,  the  preserver 
of  order,  the  guardian  of  the  rights  of  Members.  Mr.  Speaker 
Lowther  was  asked.  May  14,  1P20,  how  a  mistake  he  might 
make  could  be  redressed.  His  reply,  greeted  with  loud 
laughter,  was  "  The  Chair,  like  the  Pope,  is  infallible." 

It   must  not   be   supposed,   however,   that   smooth   and 
easy  is  the  way  of  the  President  of  the  House  of  Commons. 


132     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

The  whole  art  of  the  Speakership  does  not  consist  in  presenting 
a  dignified,  ceremonial  figure,  in  wig  and  gown,  on  a  carved 
and  canopied  Chair,  and  having  a  mastery  of  the  technicalities 
of  procedure.  The  situation  that  tests  most  severely  the 
mettle  of  the  Speaker  is  one  that  not  infrequently  arises  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  when  there  is  what  the  newspapers 
call  "  a  scene,"  and  he  is  expected  to  stand  forth  on  the 
dais  of  the  Chair  the  one  calm,  serious,  stern  and  impartial 
personality,  looming  above  the  noise  and  recrimination 
which  arises  from  the  benches  below.  It  is  not  cleverness 
that  is  then  the  indispensable  quality  in  a  Speaker.  More 
to  the  purpose,  for  the  controlling  and  the  moderating  of 
the  passions  of  a  popular  assembly,  are  the  superficial  gifts 
of  an  impressive  presence,  an  air  of  authority,  a  ready  tongue, 
and  a  resonant  voice.  Still,  the  control  of  the  House  in 
such  an  emergency  will  depend  not  so  much  upon  the 
appearance,  the  temperament,  the  elocution  of  Mr.  Speaker, 
as  upon  the  measure  of  the  confidence  and  respect  of  Members 
which  he  has  previously  won  by  more  sterling  qualities  ; 
and  the  qualities  upon  which  the  trust  of  the  House  of 
Commons  in  its  Speaker  reposes  most  securely  and  abidingly 
are  strength  of  character,  fairness  of  mind,  urbanity  of 
temper,  or  a  combination  of  tactful  firmness  with  strict 
impartiality. 

No  doubt  it  is  difficult  for  the  Speaker  to  appear  impartial 
at  all  moments'  and  to  all  sections  of  the  House.  Some 
passing  feeling  of  soreness  will  inevitably  be  felt  by  Members 
censured,  or  placed  at  a  disadvantage  in  Party  engagements, 
by  decisions  of  the  Chair.  But  if  the  Speaker  has  not 
impressed  the  House  generally  with  his  discretion  and 
judgment,  with  confidence  in  the  impartiality  of  his  rulings, 
with  the  conviction  that  he  regards  himself  as  the  guardian 
of  the  House,  and  not  the  auxiliary  of  the  Government  in 
getting  business  done,  that  feeling  of  soreness  will  not  be, 
as  it  ought  to  be,  brief  and  transient,  and  the  Speaker  will 
find  on  a  crucial  occasion  that  the  Assembly  has  passed 
from  his  control. 

Even  so,  the  Speaker  must  not  be  too  stern  in  action 
or  demeanour.  I  have  witnessed  many  violent  scenes  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  I  have  invariably  noticed  that, 


*'  ORDER,    ORDER  !  »'  133 

in  a  clash  of  will  and  tempers,  genial  expostulation  by  the 
Chair  is  most  potent  in  the  restoration  of  order.  Disraeli 
said  of  Denison  that  even  "  the  rustle  of  his  robes,"  as  he 
rose  to  rebuke  a  breach  of  order,  was  sufficient  to  awe 
the  unruly  Member  into  submission.  But  Members  are 
not  disposed  to  forget  that,  after  all,  the  Speaker  is  but 
the  servant  of  the  House.  There  was  once  a  very  proud 
and  haughty  Speaker,  Sir  Edward  Seymour  by  name,  in 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.  "  You  are  too  big  for  the  Chair 
and  for  us,"  said  a  Member  smarting  under  a  reprimand  or 
a  ruling.  "  For  you,  that  think  yourself  one  of  the  governors 
of  the  world,  to  be  our  servant  is  incongruous."  The 
Speaker  must  not  be  too  fastidious  or  impatient  with  the 
commonplace  or  the  eccentric.  He  should  have  a  genial 
tolerance  of  the  extravagant  in  personality  and  character, 
which  is  certain  to  appear  in  company  of  707  men,  chosen 
from  all  classes  and  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  which, 
indeed,  makes  the  House  of  Commons  a  place  of  infinite 
interest,  abounding  in  humour  and  comedy.  Moreover,  the 
House  will  not  tolerate  the  despot  or  the  master  in  an  officer 
of  its  own  creation.  Indeed,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  Speaker  wields  unfettered  authority,  that  his  individual 
will  is  law  in  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  true  that  his 
controlling  powers  are  great,  and  that  his  rulings  on  points 
of  order  and  procedure  are  final.  But  the  will  which  he 
imposes  upon  the  House  is  not  his  own  :  it  is  the  law  of  the 
House  itself,  for  everything  he  does  must  be  in  accordance 
with  rule  and  precedent. 


But  suppose  a  Speaker,  who,  of  course,  puts  his  own 
interpretation  on  precedents  and  Standing  Orders,  ultimately 
finds  that  he  has  made  a  wrong  ruling,  what  ought  he  to  do 
in  the  way  of  rectifying  it  ?  Thomas  Moore  relates  in  his 
Diary  an  extraordinary  discussion  on  this  point  with  Manners- 
Sutton  after  dinner  one  evening  in  1829  at  the  Speaker's 
house.  "  Dwelt  much  on  the  advantages  of  humbug," 
writes  Moore,  in  reference  to  Manners-Sutton  ;  "  of  a  man 
knowing  how  to  take  care  of  his  reputation,  and  to  keep 


134    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

from  being  found  out,  so  as  always  to  pass  for  cleverer  than 
he  is."  Moore  says  he  himself  argued  that  this  denoted 
a  wise  man,  not  a  humbug.  If  by  that  line  of  policy  a  man 
induced  his  fellow-men  to  give  him  credit  for  being  cleverer 
than  he  really  was,  the  fault  could  not  be  his,  so  long  as  he 
did  not  himself  advance  any  claim  to  it  as  his  due.  The 
moment  he  pretended  to  be  what  he  was  not,  then  began 
humbug,  but  not  sooner.     The  poet  then  goes  on  : 

He  still  pushed  his  point,  playfully,  but  pertinaciously,  and  in 
illustration  of  what  he  meant  put  the  following  case  :  "  Suppose  a 
Speaker  rather  new  to  his  office,  and  a  question  brought  into  dis- 
cussion before  him  which  Parties  are  equally  divided  upon,  and  which 
he  sees  will  run  to  very  inconvenient  lengths  if  not  instantly  decided. 
Well,  though  ignorant  entirely  on  the  subject,  he  assumes  an  air  of 
authority,  and  gives  his  decision,  which  sets  the  matter  at  rest.  /On 
going  home  he  finds  that  he  has  decided  quite  wrongly  ;  and  then, 
without  making  any  further  fuss  about  the  business,  he  quietly  goes 
and  alters  the  entry  on  the  Journals. 7 

Moore  again  insisted  that  wisdom,  and  not  humbug,  was 
the  characteristic  of  such  an  action.  "  To  his  supposed 
case  all  I  had  to  answer,"  the  poet  writes,  "  was  that  I  still 
thought  the  man  a  wise  one,  and  no  humbug  ;  by  his  resolution 
in  a  moment  of  difficulty  he  prevented  a  present  mischief, 
and  by  his  withdrawal  of  a  wrong  precedent  averted  a 
future  one." 

There  are  only  two  instances  of  the  action  of  a  Speaker 
being  made  the  subject  of  a  motion  of  censure,  followed  by 
a  division.  In  neither  case,  however,  was  the  motion  carried. 
On  July  11,  1879,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell  moved  a  vote  of 
censure  on  Mr.  Speaker  Brand  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
exceeded  his  duty  in  directing  the  clerks  at  the  Table  to 
take  notes  of  the  speeches  of  the  Nationalist  Members,  then 
inaugurating  their  policy  of  obstructing  the  proceedings  of 
the  House.  The  motion  was  lost  by  421  votes  to  29,  or  a 
majority  of  392 — one  of  the  largest  recorded  in  the  history 
of  Parliament.  The  Irish  Members  were  also  the  movers 
of  the  other  vote  of  censure  on  the  Speaker.  On  March  20, 
1902,  Joseph  Chamberlain,  then  Colonial  Secretary,  speaking 
on  the  concluding  stages  of  the  South  African  War,  quoted 
a  saying  of  Vilonel,  the  Boer  General,  that  the  enemies  of 


**  ORDER,    ORDER  !  »'  135 

South  Africa  were  those  who  were  continuing  a  hopeless 
struggle.  "  He  is  a  traitor,"  interjected  John  Dillon,  the 
Irish  Nationalist,  and  Chamberlain  retorted ;  "  The  hon. 
gentleman  is  a  good  judge  of  traitors,"  Dillon  appealed  to 
the  Chair  whether  the  expression  of  the  Colonial  Secretary 
was  not  unparliamentary.  "  I  deprecate  interruptions  and 
retorts,"  replied  Mr.  Speaker  Gully,  "  and  if  the  hon.  gentle- 
man had  not  himself  interrupted  the  right  hon.  gentleman, 
he  would  not  have  been  subjected  to  a  retort."  "  Then  I 
desire  to  say  that  the  right  hon.  gentleman  is  a  damned 
liar !  "  exclaimed  Dillon.  He  was  thereupon  "  named  "  by 
the  Speaker,  and,  on  the  motion  of  Arthur  Balfour,  was 
suspended  from  the  service  of  the  House.  On  May  7th 
J.  J.  Mooney,  a  Member  of  the  Irish  Party,  moved  that  the 
Speaker  ought  to  have  ruled  that  the  words  applied  by  the 
Colonial  Secretary  to  Dillon  were  unparliamentary,  and 
accordingly  have  directed  Chamberlain  to  withdraw  them. 
On  a  division  the  action  of  the  Chair  was  supported  by 
398  votes  to  63,  or  a  majority  of  335. 


If  the  duties  of  the  Speakership  are  arduous,  its  dignity 
is  high  and  its  emoluments  handsome.  In  former  times  the 
Speaker  was  paid  a  salary  of  £5  a  day,  and  a  fee  of  £5  on 
every  Private  Bill.  This  fluctuating  income  was  replaced 
by  a  fixed  salary  of  £6,000  a  year  on  the  election  of  Henry 
Addington  to  the  Chair  in  1789.  It  was  also  decided  at 
the  same  time  that  a  sum  of  £1,000  equipment  money  was 
to  be  given  to  the  Speaker  on  his  first  appointment.  In 
the  reign  of  William  IV  the  salary  was  reduced  to  £5,000 
to  be  paid,  free  of  all  taxes,  out  of  the  Consolidated  Fund 
direct,  without  having  to  be  voted  every  year  by  the  House 
of  Commons.  At  the  same  time  an  official  secretary,  with 
a  salary  of  £500,  was  attached  to  the  office.  The  Speaker 
also  has  a  residence,  furnished  by  the  State  and  free  of  rent, 
rates  and  taxes,  with  coal  and  light  supplied.  The  Speaker's 
house  is  in  that  conspicuous  wing  of  the  Palace  of  West- 
minster, with  its  carved  stonework  and  gothic  windows, 
extending  from  the  Clock  Tower  to  the  river.     It  was  first 


136     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

occupied  by  John  Evelyn  Denison  in  1857.  Here  the  Speaker 
gives  several  official  entertainments  during  session.  There 
are  dinners  to  the  Ministers,  to  the  leader  Members  of  the 
Opposition,  and  to  private  Members.  According  to  long- 
established  custom,  a  Member  who  accepts  an  invitation 
to  dine  with  Mr.  Speaker  is  required  to  appear  either  in 
uniform  or  Court  dress,  ordinary  evening  dress  being  debarred. 
As  a  result,  many  eminent  parliamentarians,  such  as  William 
Cobbett,  Joseph  Hume,  Richard  Cobden,  John  Bright, 
Joseph  Cowen,  all  sturdy  democrats  and  Radicals,  who  could 
not  bring  themselves  to  wear  Court  dress,  never  had  the 
pleasure  of  dining  as  guests  of  Mr.  Speaker.  The  rule 
is  still  enforced.  The  only  departure  from  it  was  made 
by  Mr.  Speaker  Peel  during  the  short  Liberal  Parliament 
of  1895,  when  he  had  a  separate  dinner  party  of  the  Labour 
Members  of  the  House,  and  told  them  they  might  come 
in  any  dress  they  pleased.  But  that  precedent,  at  least, 
has  not  once  been  followed  at  Westminster,  though  subse- 
quent Speakers  have  in  such  cases  given  luncheons  instead 
of  dinners.  The  Speaker  is  attired  at  these  dinners  in  a 
black  velvet  Court  suit,  knee-breeches  with  silk  stockings, 
a  steel-handled  sword  by  his  side,  and  lace  ruffles  round 
his  neck  and  wrists.  The  table  and  huge  sideboards  in 
the  oak-panelled  rooms  are  spread  with  magnificent  old 
plate,  and  the  walls  are  hung  with  portraits  of  many 
famous  "  First  Commoners." 

The  Speaker  is  the  First  Commoner  of  the  Realm, 
according  to  an  Act  of  Parliament  passed  in  1688  (1  William 
and  Mary,  c.  21)  after  the  Revolution.  It  provided  that  the 
Speaker's  place  in  the  order  of  precedence  is  next  after  the 
peers  of  the  Realm.  In  1919  the  Speaker  was  raised  a  great 
many  steps  in  the  scale.  By  an  Order  in  Council  issued  by 
King  George  V  it  was  ordained  that  he  "  shall  have,  hold 
and  enjoy  place,  pre-eminence  and  precedence,  immediately 
after  the  Lord  President  of  the  Council,"  which  makes  him 
the  seventh  subject  of  the  Realm.  The  order  is  :  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  Lord  Chancellor,  Archbishop  of  York,  Prime 
Minister,  Lord  Chancellor  of  Ireland,  Lord  President  of  the 
Council,  the  Speaker. 

The  Speakership  is  one  of  the  highest  prizes  of  political 


*'  ORDER,   ORDER  !  ''  137 

ambition.  In  dignity  and  importance  it  is  next,  perhaps,  to 
the  office  of  Prime  Minister.  Four  Speakers  have  resigned 
in  order  to  become  Prime  Ministers.  One  of  them,  Henry 
Addington,  after  being  Speaker  for  twelve  years,  was  sum- 
moned by  George  III,  in  1801,  to  form  an  Administration  in 
succession  to  Pitt's,  which  failed  to  complete  its  Irish  policy 
at  the  Union,  owing  to  the  King's  rooted  objection  to 
Catholic  emancipation.  The  only  position  for  which  the 
Speakership  would  be  relinquished  is  certainly  that  of  Prime 
Minister.  Sir  John  Freeman-Mitford,  who  followed  Adding-  j, 
ton  in  the  Chair,  resigned  after  a  year's  service  in  order 
to  become  Lord  Chancellor  of  Ireland  ;  but  he  did  so  only 
at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  the  King  and  the  solatium  of 
a  salary  of  £10,000  per  year  and  a  peerage  as  Lord  Redesdale. 
The  Lord  Chancellorship  of  Ireland  is  a  high  and  honourable 
position,  but  it  is  unlikelj'^  that  anyone  would  now  give  up 
the  Speakership  of  the  House  of  Commons  for  it.  Charles 
Abbot  resigned  the  Chief  Secretaryship  for  Ireland — a  post 
of  greater  political  importance  than  that  of  the  Lord 
Chancellorship — in  order  to  succeed  Freeman-Mitford  as 
Speaker  in  1802.  Abbot  refused  the  offer  of  a  Secretaryship 
of  State  from  Perceval,  the  Prime  Minister,  in  1809  during 
his  occupancy  of  the  Chair ;  and  Manners-Sutton  could  *' ' 
have  been  Home  Secretary  in  the  Administration  formed 
in  1827  by  Canning,  but  he  did  not  think  it  good  enough. 

On  the  other  hand.  Ministers  have  been  willing  to  give 
up  their  portfolios  for  the  Speaker's  Chair.  Spring  Rice, 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  of  the  Melbourne  Administration, 
had  his  heart  set  on  that  coveted  office.  He  was  in  the 
running  for  the  Speakership  in  1835,  when  James  Abercromby 
was  elected.  In  1838  Abercromby  intimated  to  Lord 
Melbourne  his  intention  to  resign — throwing  a  curious  side- 
light on  the  relations  at  the  time  between  Mr.  Speaker  and 
the  Treasury  Bench — because  from  the  attitude  of  Lord 
John  Russell,  the  Leader  of  the  House,  he  felt  he  no  longer 
possessed  that  degree  of  Ministerial  confidence  which,  in 
his  opinion,  was  essential  to  the  due  conduct  of  public  business 
and  the  maintenance  of  the  authority  of  the  Chair.  The 
Prime  Minister  induced  Abercromby  to  postpone  his  resigna- 
tion, and  at  the  same  time  satisfied  the  renewed  pretensions 


138     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

of  his  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  with  the  promise  that 
he  should  be  the  Government  candidate  for  the  Chair 
whenever  it  became  vacant.  But  when  Abercromby  retired 
in  the  following  year  it  was  found  that  Spring  Rice  was  not 
acceptable  to  the  Radicals,  and  Shaw-Lefevre  was  selected 
in  order  to  maintain  the  unity  of  the  Party  and  preserve 
the  Liberal  succession  to  the  Chair.  Again,  on  the  resignation 
of  Arthur  Wellesley  Peel  in  1895,  Sir  Henry  Campbell- 
Bannerman  was  willing  to  lay  down  his  portfolio  as  Secretary 
of  State  for  War  in  the  then  Liberal  Government  for  the 
object  of  his  ambition — the  Speakership  ;  and  it  is  said 
that  he  reluctantly  yielded  to  the  urgent  representations  of 
his  colleagues  that  the  Party  could  ill  spare  his  services. 
Just  ten  years  later  he  became  Prime  Minister. 

Still,  the  office  has,  as  a  rule,  fallen  to  unofficial  Members, 
or  to  Members  who  have  held  subordinate  Ministerial 
appointments.  Denison,  in  the  opening  passages  of  his 
Diary,  states  that  on  April  8,  1857,  he  was  seated  in  his 
library  at  Ossington,  when  the  letters  were  brought  in,  and 
among  them  was  the  following  : 

94  Piccadilly, 

April  7,   1867. 
My  dear  Denison, 

We  wish  to  be  allowed  to  propose  you  for  the  Speakership  of 
the  House  of  Commons.     Will  you  agree  ? 

Yours  sincerely, 

Palmekston. 

Denison  says  the  proposal  took  him  by  surprise. 
"  Though,"  he  writes,  "  I  had  attended  of  late  years  to 
several  branches  of  the  private  business,  and  had  taken 
more  part  in  the  public  business  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, I  had  never  made  the  duties  of  the  Chair  my 
special  study."  William  Court  Gully  had  been  ten  years 
in  Parliament  before  his  elevation  to  the  Speaker's  Chair, 
but  he  was  one  of  that  large,  modest  band  of  "  silent 
Members "  who,  confining  themselves  to  voting  in  the 
division  lobbies,  arc  unknown  in  debate,  and,  conse- 
quently, are  never  mentioned  in  the  papers.  Moreover, 
being  a  busy  lawyer,  Gully  took  little  or  no  part  in  the  routine 


**  ORDER,    ORDER  !  »'  139 

work  of  the  House,  such  as  service  on  Committees  upstairs, 
which  is  supposed  to  afford  a  good  training  for  the  Speaker- 
ship. Indeed,  the  Chair  may  be  said  to  be  the  one  great 
prize  that  is  open  to  the  occupants  of  the  back  benches  as 
well  as  the  front  benches  who  possess  the  necessary  physical 
and  mental  qualities.  Personal  appearance  is  undoubtedly 
an  essential  qualification  for  the  office.  This  includes  the 
possession  of  clear  vision.  A  Speaker  with  spectacles  would 
look  incongruous  in  an  assembly  where  the  competition  to 
catch  his  eye  is  so  keen. 


The  term  of  office  of  Mr.  Speaker  is  usually  short.  Arthur 
Onslow,  who  was  elected  in  1726,  continued  in  possession 
of  the  Chair  for  thirty-five  years,  through  five  successive 
Parliaments,  apparently  without  ruffling  a  hair  of  his  wig. 
So  long  an  occupancy  is  now  wellnigh  impossible.  For 
one  thing,  the  duties  of  Mr.  Speaker  are  physically  more 
responsible  and  irksome.  The  sessions  are  longer,  the  sittings 
of  the  House  more  protracted,  and  the  fatigue  of  the  pro- 
longed and  often  tedious  hours  in  the  Chair  must  be  most 
severe  mentally  and  physically.  Besides,  there  has  grown 
up  of  late  a  preference  for  a  certain  maturity  of  age  in  the . 
Speaker.  Arthur  Onslow  was  only  thirty-six  when  he  was 
called  to  the  office,  Henry  Addington,  who  occupied  the 
Speaker's  Chair  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
was  thirty-two  only  on  his  appointment.  William  Court 
Gully,  who  was  in  possession  of  the  Chair  at  the  opening 
of  the  twentieth  century,  had  passed  his  sixtieth  year  on 
his  election.  The  occupancy  of  the  office  must  be  com- 
paratively brief  if  men  are  appointed  to  it  only  when  their 
heads  are  grey  or  bald.  Of  recent  Speakers,  Henry  Bouverie 
Brand  sat  for  twelve  years,  Arthur  Wellesley  Peel  eleven 
years,  William  Court  Gully  ten  years,  James  William 
Lowther  sixteen  years. 

The  Speaker  receives  a  pension  of  £4,000  a  year.  John 
Evelyn  Denison  refused  this  retiring  allowance.  "  Though 
without  any  pretensions  to  wealth,"  he  wrote  to  Gladstone, 
then  Prime  Minister,  "  I  have  a  private  fortune  which  will 


140    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

suffice,  and  for  the  few  years  of  life  that  remain  to  me  I 
should  be  happier  in  feeling  that  I  am  not  a  burden  to  my 
fellow-countrymen."  He  retired  in  February  1872,  and 
died,  without  heir,  in  March  1873.  A  peerage  is  also  conferred 
on  the  Speaker  when  he  resigns.  This  was  not  the  custom 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  When  Arthur  Onslow  retired  in 
1761,  after  his  long  service  of  thirty-five  years,  George  III, 
in  reply  to  the  address  of  the  Commons  to  confer  on  Onslow 
"  some  signal  mark  of  honour,"  gave  him  a  pension  of 
£3,000  a  year  for  the  lives  of  himself  and  his  son,  but  no 
peerage.  The  custom  began  in  the  nineteenth  century  with 
Charles  Abbot,  who,  on  retiring  in  1817,  was  made  Baron 
Colchester.  Since  then  every  Speaker  has  been  "  called  to 
the  House  of  Lords  " — Manners-Sutton  as  Lord  Canterbury  ; 
Abercromby  as  Lord  Dunfermline  ;  Shaw-Lefevre  as  Lord 
Eversley ;  Denison  as  Lord  Ossington  ;  Brand  as  Lord 
Hampton ;    Peel  as  Lord  Peel ;    Gully  as  Lord   Selby. 

But  he  is  Speaker  no  longer  ;  another  presides  in  his 
place  ;  and  what  a  shadowy  personage  he  seems,  even  as  a 
Lord,  compared  with  the  resounding  fame  and  distinction 
that  were  his  in  the  glorious  years  when  he  filled  with  pomp 
and  dignity  the  Chair  of  the  House  of  Commons  ! 


CHAPTER   XII 

HOW   A   GOVERNMENT   IS    MADE 


Macaulay,  writing  to  his  sister  Hannah  on  December  19, 
1845,  says  :  "  It  is  an  odd  thing  to  see  a  Ministry  making. 
I  never  witnessed  the  process  before.  Lord  John  Russell 
has  been  all  day  in  his  inner  library.  His  antechamber  has 
been  filled  with  comers  and  goers,  some  talking  in  knots, 
some  writing  notes  at  tables.  Every  five  minutes  somebody  is 
called  into  the  inner  room.  As  the  people  who  have  been 
closeted  come  out,  the  cry  of  the  whole  body  of  expectants 
is  :  '  What  are  you  ?  '  I  was  summoned  almost  as  soon 
as  I  arrived,  and  found  Lord  Auckland  and  Lord  Clarendon 
sitting  with  Lord  John.  After  some  talk  about  other 
matters,  Lord  John  told  me  that  he  had  been  trj^ing  to 
ascertain  my  wishes,  and  that  he  found  I  w^anted  leisure 
and  quiet  more  than  salary  and  business.  Labouchere 
had  told  him  this.  He  therefore  offered  me  the  Pay  Office, 
one  of  the  three  places  which,  as  I  have  told  you,  I  should 
prefer.     I  at  once  accepted  it." 

But  this  Ministry  was  fated  not  to  be  formed.  Both 
Lord  Grey  and  Lord  Palmerston,  two  leading  members  of 
the  Whig  Party,  wanted  the  Foreign  Office,  and  neither 
would  recognize  a  superior  claim  in  the  other.  Macaulay, 
from  whose  very  lips  the  cup  of  office  was  thus  rudely  dashed, 
bore  the  disappointment  philosophically.  On  the  day  after 
he  had  sent  the  letter,  from  which  I  have  quoted,  he  wrote 
another  to  his  sister,  saying  :  "  All  is  over.  Late  at  night, 
just  as  I  was  undressing,  a  knock  was  given  at  the  door  of 
my  chambers.  A  messenger  had  come  from  Lord  John 
with  a  short  note.     The  quarrel  between  Lord  Grey  and 


142     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Lord  Palmerston  had  made  it  impossible  to  form  a  Ministry. 
I  went  to  bed  and  slept  sound." 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  interesting  business  of 
making  a  Government,  the  first  question  that  arises  is — 
What  is  the  chief  test  of  a  man's  capacity  for  office  ?  Under 
our  Constitution,  with  its  free  and  unfettered  Parliament,  of 
which  the  Ministers  must  be  Members,  a  deliberative  assembly 
where  everything  is  made  the  subject  of  talk,  talk,  talk, 
and  provided  with  a  Reporters'  Gallery  for  the  dissemina- 
tion of  its  debates  through  the  Press,  it  is  inevitable  that 
a  man's  fitness  for  a  post  in  the  Administration  should  be 
decided  mainly  by  his  gift  of  speech.  It  must  often  prove 
a  false  standard  of  judgment  in  regard  to  genuine  ability 
and  character.  Glibness  of  tongue,  or  even  oratory,  is 
certainly  not  an  essential  qualification  for  the  administra- 
tive duties  of  government.  Still,  the  fact  remains  that 
the  ready  talker  with  but  little  practical  experience  of 
affairs  has  a  better  chance  of  office  than  the  man  of  trained 
business  capacity  who  is  tongue-tied.  Perhaps  debaters 
are  really  more  useful  to  a  Government  than  business  men 
in  an  arena  of  conflict  like  the  House  of  Commons.  There 
are  some  excellent  anecdotes  pointing  to  such  a  conclusion. 
Disraeli,  forming  an  Administration,  offered  the  Board  of 
Trade  to  a  man  who  wanted  instead  the  Local  Government 
Board,  as  he  was  better  acquainted  with  the  municipal 
affairs  of  the  country  than  its  commerce.  "  It  doesn't 
matter,"  said  Disraeli ;  "  I  suppose  you  know  as  much 
about  trade  as  Blank,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty, 
knows  about  ships."  John  Bright  once  said  he  asked 
Richard  Lalor  Sheil,  an  eloquent  speaker,  but  unconnected 
with  commerce,  how  it  happened  that  he  was  appointed 
to  the  Board  of  Trade.  "I  think,"  repHed  Sheil,  "the 
only  reason  is  I  was  found  to  know  less  of  trade  than 
any  other  man  in  •the  House  of  Commons."  Bright 
himself  was  made  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  in 
18G9.  It  used  to  be  said  in  the  Department  that,  so 
unfitted  was  he  for  administration,  he  did  not  know  even 
how  to  tie  up  official  papers   with    red  tape. 

When,  at  an  earlier  period  of  political  history,  Sidney 
Herbert,   Lord   Herbert   of  lica,   resigned   the   War   Office, 


HOW   A   GOVERNMENT   IS   MADE     143 

Palmerston  fixed  upon  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  to 
succeed  him,  and  argued  the  point  with  Lady  Theresa  Lewis, 
saying  that  the  duties  would  not  be  mihtary,  but  civil. 
"  He  would  have  to  look  after  the  accounts,"  said  the  Prime 
Minister.  "  He  never  can  make  up  his  own,"  replied  the 
wife.  "  He  will  look  after  the  commissariat,"  said  the 
Prime  Minister.  "  He  cannot  order  his  own  dinner,"  replied 
the  wife.  "  He  will  control  the  clothing  department," 
said  the  Prime  Minister.  "  If  my  daughters  did  not  give 
the  orders  to  his  tailor,  he  would  be  without  a  coat,"  replied 
the  wife.  Cornewall  Lewis,  however,  accepted  the  offer, 
and  his  Under-Secretary  soon  afterwards  discovered  him 
in  Pall  Mall  reading  a  work  on  the  military  tactics  of  the 
Lycaonians.  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  the  essayist,  who  was  Clerk 
of  the  Privy  Council,  used  to  tell  the  story  that  once  when 
there  was  a  difficulty  in  finding  a  Colonial  Secretary,  Lord 
Palmerston  said :  "  Well,  I'll  take  the  colonies  myself," 
and  presently  remarked  to  Helps  ;  "'  Just  come  upstairs  with 
me  for  half  an  hour  and  show  me  where  these  places  are 
on  the  map."  Charles  James  Fox  is  said  to  have  confessed 
his  ignorance  of  what  Consols  meant.  He  gathered  from 
the  newspapers  that  they  were  "  things  which  rose  and 
fell  "  ;  and  he  was  always  delighted  when  they  fell,  because 
he  noticed,  that  for  some  unaccountable  reason,  it  very 
much  annoyed  Pitt,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  That, 
no  doubt,  was  Fox's  fun.  But  we  are  told  of  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill,  on  the  authority  of  his  son  and  biographer, 
Winston  Churchill,  that  when,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
Treasury  returns  worked  out  in  decimal  figures  were  laid 
before  him,  he  inquired  what  "  these  damned  dots  "  signified. 
I  myself  heard  Sir  Edward  Carson,  a  distinguished  lawyer, 
speaking  as  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  in  1917,  during 
the  Great  War,  declare  that  he  entered  the  Admiralty  in 
a  state  of  extreme  ignorance.  "  Someone  asked  me  the 
day  I  went  there  how  I  felt,"  he  went  on  to  say,  "  and 
I  said,  '  My  only  qualification  is  that  I  am  absolutely 
at  sea." 

After  all,  perhaps,  it  is  a  matter  of  no  very  great  concern. 
Are  there  not  capable  permanent  officials  in  the  various 
Departments  of  the  State,   whQg§  duty  it  is  to  see  that 


144    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

administration  is  efficient  and  economical  ?  The  simple 
task  of  the  Minister,  as  he  sits  behind  the  scenes  in  a  room 
at  Whitehall,  is  as  a  rule  to  see  that  things  are  done  in 
harmony  with  the  political  policy  of  his  Party.  What 
seems  to  be  absolutely  necessary  to  the  prosperity  of  an 
Administration  is  that  in  the  Houses  of  Parliament — open 
as  they  are  to  the  gaze  and  hearing  of  the  country — it  should 
have  at  its  service  a  number  of  able  debaters.  The  measures 
of  the  Government  have  to  be  submitted  to  the  judgment 
of  a  deliberative  Assembly,  and  a  newspaper-reading  public ; 
and  accordingly  a  successful  Minister  is  he  whose  ready 
gift  of  clear  and  forcible  exposition  of  Party  principles  and 
policies  enables  him  to  expound  and  defend  these  measures. 
Gladstone,  when  forming  his  first  Government  in  1868, 
invited  John  Bright  to  join  it,  giving  him  his  choice  of  any 
office,  except  the  War  Office  or  the  Admiralty,  which,  as 
he  was  a  Quaker  and  a  man  of  peace,  would  hardly  suit 
him.  Bright  selected  the  position  of  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trade.  As  I  have  said,  he  never  gave  evidence 
of  any  special  business  capacity,  but  he  was  the  greatest 
orator  of  his  day  ;  he  had  uttered  in  the  House  of  Commons 
and  on  the  public  platform  the  most  beautiful  and  also  the 
most  scornful  passages  that  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  man  ; 
he  possessed  debating  gifts  which  enabled  him  to  place  a 
political  question  in  a  light  that  made  it  shine  beyond  its 
deserts,  and  that  being  so  he  was  deemed  fit  for  a  place  of 
importance  and  emolument  in  the  new  Government.  What 
is  the  good  of  a  Minister  rising  to  the  Table  of  the  House 
of  Commons  with  an  unanswerable  case  if  he  be  unable  to 
state  it — if  he  be  choked  with  arguments  for  which  he 
can  find  no  utterance  ? 


It  follows,  therefore,  that  when  a  General  Election  has 
pronounced  the  sentence  of  condemnation  on  the  existing 
Government,  and  men  of  another  Party  are  called  to  the 
service  of  the  country,  selection  for  office  is  restricted  mainly 
to  those  who  have  won  distinction  as  debaters  in  Oppo- 
sition.    On  the  benches  to  the  left  of  Mr.  Speaker  are  always 


HOW   A   GOVERNMENT   IS   MADE     145 

numbers  of  young  men  ambitious  of  office,  eagerly  pushing 
themselves  to  the  front  on  that  conspicuous  field  of  political 
activity,  under  the  eyes  of  the  Reporters'  Gallery,  most 
constant  in  their  attendance,  ever  watching  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  strike  a  blow  at  once  for  their  Party  and  their 
own  reputation,  in  the  hope  that  in  the  day  of  victory  they 
shall  have  the  proper  reward  of  their  services.  Some  of 
them  are  capable  of  talking  well  upon  any  subject.  These 
aspire  to  be  Secretaries  of  State.  Others,  not  so  remarkable 
for  general  ability  or  so  glib  of  tongue,  confine  themselves 
to  particular  departments  of  administration.  It  is  the 
endeavour  of  each  to  obtain  a  mastery  of  the  business  details 
of  some  special  office — Foreign,  Home,  Treasury,  Colonial, 
Army,  Navy,  Post  Office,  Pensions,  Trade,  Transport,  or 
Agriculture — looking  for  an  Under-Secretaryship,  in  the 
expectation  of  ultimately  attaining,  after  some  5''ears  of 
diligent  and  capable  service,  to  Cabinet  rank.  Yet  the 
qualities  needed  for  success  in  office  are  often  entirely 
different  from  those  that  bring  fame  and  renown  in  Opposi- 
tion. Gladstone  said  of  Robert  Lowe,  whom  he  appointed 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  his  first  Administration 
on  the  strength  of  the  reputation  which  that  slashing  debater 
had  made  in  Opposition,  that  he  was  "  splendid  in  attack, 
but  most  weak  in  defence  "  ;  "  that  he  was  capable  of  tearing 
anything  to  pieces,  but  of  constructing  nothing."  But  it  is 
only  after  the  brilliant  swashbuckler  of  Opposition  has 
been  tried  in  office  that  his  incapacity  and  weakness  in  the 
true  gifts  of  statesmanship  are  discovered. 

Besides  the  pushful  young  men  in  the  ranks  on  the 
back  benches,  with  their  abounding  sense  of  fitness  for  office, 
there  are  the  veterans  of  the  Front  Opposition  Bench, 
survivors  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Party  when  it  was  last  in 
power.  Some  of  these,  it  often  happens,  are  men  who  have 
grown  old  and  worn  in  the  service,  as  their  wrinkled  faces, 
bald  heads,  and  stooped  forms  testify  ;  but  their  interest 
in  public  affairs  has  not  in  the  least  abated,  and  they  still 
crave  to  be  placed  at  the  head  of  Departments.  It  might 
be  supposed  that  the  weighty  responsibility  of  office  is  a 
burden  to  be  avoided  rather  than  coveted  by  old  parliamen- 
tarians ;  the  world  has  such  pleasant  delights,  apart  from 
VOL.   I.  10 


146    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

politics,  with  which  they  might  occupy  the  leisure  of  the 
close  of  their  day.  But  that  is  an  idle  supposition.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  Senate  of  Rome,  to  which  election  was  for 
life,  there  was  a  special  law  providing  that  no  senator  over 
sixty  should  be  summoned  to  its  meetings.  Did  any  Roman 
ever  willingly  acquiesce  in  it  except  the  physically  incapable  ? 
In  modern  England  human  nature  is  exactly  what  it  was 
in  ancient  Rome.  The  grievance  of  the  Front  Bench  man 
approaching  seventy  would  be,  not  that  he  should  be  dragged 
from  seclusion  and  quiet  to  sit  for  hours  of  a  morning  in 
a  room  at  Whitehall,  reading  documents,  and  attend  at 
the  House  of  Commons  till  late  at  night,  but  that  he  should 
be  set  aside  in  the  distribution  of  offices  when  his  Party 
has  again  triumphed  at  the  polls.  And  he  has  tradition 
and  custom  at  his  back,  in  support  of  his  desire,  as  well 
as  his  past  services.  It  is  held  that  a  member  of  either 
House  of  Parliament  who  has  already  been  in  the  Cabinet 
is  entitled  to  high  office  again  whenever  his  Party  comes 
back  to  power  ;  and  that,  should  he  be  passed  over,  should 
he  be  put  on  the  retired  list,  he  has  every  reason  to  feel 
affronted. 

These  are  the  two  classes — the  old  but  the  tried,  the 
able  but  the  untrained  young — from  which  the  Prime 
Minister  draws  the  members  of  his  Administration.  As  I 
have  indicated,  he  has  not  an  absolutely  free  choice.  He 
may  not  sit  down  in  his  study  and,  surveying  the  most 
prominent  members  of  his  Party  in  both  Houses,  select 
for  office  those  who  have  proved  themselves  possessed  of 
the  qualities  of  character,  ability,  experience,  and  training. 
His  task  it  is  to  satisfy,  as  far  as  possible,  claims  as  conflicting 
as  they  are  strong,  and,  at  the  same  time,  give  to  his 
Administration  that  weight  and  authority  which  is  necessary 
to  win  and  hold,  in  some  measure,  the  confidence  of  the 
country.  It  is  said  that  Gladstone,  who  formed  no  fewer 
than  four  Administrations — an  almost  unprecedented  record 
in  constitutional  history — used  to  draw  up  on  separate 
slips  of  paper  a  list  of  the  various  offices,  placing  opposite 
each  tlie  names  of  three  or  four  more  or  less  eligible  men  as 
alternatives,  and  then,  by  a  process  of  sifting,  evolve  the 
definite  list.     But  this  method,  which  no  doubt  most  Prime 


HOW   A   GOVERNMENT    IS    MADE     147 

Ministers  adopt  more  or  less,  is  not  at  all  the  simple  matter 
it  looks.  It  has  to  be  followed  out  with  exceeding  care  and 
circumspection.  For  every  post  in  the  Ministry  there  are 
at  least  three  or  four  influential  aspirants,  old  or  young, 
each  of  whom  thinks  the  office  on  which  his  mind  is  set 
is  his  by  every  title  of  personal  fitness  and  devotion  to  the 
Party.  To  adjust  these  rival  claims  is,  as  I  have  said,  no 
easy  thing  for  the  Prime  Minister.  Some  of  the  office-seekers, 
those  especially  who  know  there  are  strong  rivals  in  the 
field,  insist  upon  personal  interviews,  in  order  to  set  forth 
their  pretensions  fully  and  unanswerably,  and  the  serious 
loss  the  Party,  if  not  the  nation,  would  suffer  were  it  not 
to  have  the  advantage  of  their  services.  Every  post  brings 
shoals  of  letters  from  Members  of  Parliament,  and  leading 
Party  men  in  the  country,  strongly  urging  the  appointment 
of  this  person  or  that  to  a  post  in  the  Ministry,  or  his 
inclusion  in  the  Cabinet. 

Another  important  consideration  of  which  the  Prime 
Minister  is  obliged  to  take  heed  is  the  distribution  of  the 
offices  of  the  Administration  between  the  House  of  Lords 
and  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was  provided  by  the 
Government  of  India  Act,  1858 — creating  a  fifth  Secretary 
of  State,  that  for  India,  the  others  being  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
Home,  the  Colonies,  and  War — that  four  Secretaries  of 
State  and  four  Under-Secretaries  may  sit  as  members  of 
the  House  of  Commons  at  the  same  time.^  In  1864  notice 
was  taken  that  five  Under-Secretaries  were  sitting  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  violation  of  this  statutory  provision, 
and  a  motion  was  made  that  the  seat  of  the  fifth  Under- 
Secretary  was  thereby  vacated.  The  House  referred  the 
matter  to  a  Committee,  who  reported  that  the  seat  of  the 
Under-Secretary  last  appointed  was  not  vacated,  but  as 
the  law  had  been  inadvertently  infringed,  it  was  thought 

1  This  statutory  provision  was  temporarily  suspended  during  the 
Great  War.  It  was  provided  by  an  Act  passed  in  December  1916, 
making  certain  new  Ministerial  appointments,  and  additional  Secre- 
taries or  Under-Secretaries,  that  during  the  continuance  of  the  War, 
and  for  six  months  afterwards,  the  limitation  on  the  number  of  Prin- 
cipal Secretaries  and  Under-Secretaries  who  may  sit  and  vote  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  shall  not  have  effect. 


148     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

necessary  to  pass  a  Bill  of  Indemnity.  By  the  Air  Force 
Act,  1917,  a  sixth  Secretary  of  State,  that  for  Air,  was 
created,  and  the  number  of  Principal  Secretaries  of  State 
and  Under-Secretaries  capable  of  sitting  in  the  House  of 
Commons  was  increased  to  five.  The  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  must  be  in  the  representative  Chamber,  as  the 
hereditary  House  cannot  impose  taxation.  The  holders  of 
all  the  other  prominent  offices  may  be  in  one  House  or  the 
other,  as  the  Prime  Minister  thinks  most  convenient.  But 
it  has  now  become  a  rule,  from  which  probably  there  will 
never  be  a  departure,  of  placing  the  Home  Secretary — the 
Minister  whose  department  comes  most  closely  into  touch 
with  the  ordinary  life  of  the  citizen — and  his  Under-Secretary 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Foreign  Secretary,  whose 
duties  are  most  delicate  and  responsible,  has  usually  been 
given  the  greater  freedom  and  leisure  of  the  House  of  Lords. 
Arthur  Balfour  declared  in  the  House  of  Commons,  during 
the  Session  of  1905,  that  the  Foreign  Secretary  would  never 
again  be  seen  in  that  Chamber,  unless  the  House  was  pre- 
pared to  release  him  from  the  ordinary  obligations  of  a 
Minister.  "  Because,  if  you  ask  him,"  continued  the  Prime 
Minister,  "  to  come  down  to  answer  questions,  or  when 
his  own  office  is  under  discussion  ;  if  you  require  him  to 
come  down,  as  my  other  right  hon.  friends  are  required  to 
come  down,  whenever  there  is  a  Government  division  or 
an  important  Government  debate  ;  if  you  require  him  to 
be  here  throughout  the  whole  night,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  carry  on  the  work  of  such  an  office  as  the  Foreign  Office — 
he  cannot  do  it.  I  respectfully  say  it  with  full  knowledge 
both  of  what  the  House  of  Commons  requires  and  what  is 
required  of  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs."  Sir  Edward 
Grey  subsequently  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  ten 
years,  as  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  but  conces- 
sions in  regard  to  answering  questions  and  general  attendance 
were  granted  him  of  the  kind  indicated  by  Balfour.  The 
other  Secretaries  of  State — War,  Colonies,  India — may  be 
in  either  the  House  of  Lords  or  the  House  of  Commons, 
subject  to  the  statutory  provisions  I  have  mentioned,  but 
in  whatever  Chamber  the  Principal  Secretary  may  be,  the 
Under-Secretary  of  the  same  department  must  be  in  the 


HOW   A   GOVERNMENT   IS   MADE     149 

other.     The  religion  of  aspirants  to  office  must  also  be  taken 
into  account  by  the  Prime  Minister. 

There  are  two  positions  in  the  Government  for  which 
Roman  Catholics  are  ineligible — the  Lord  Chancellorship  of 
England  and  the  Lord  Lieutenancy  of  Ireland.  In  1891 
Gladstone  brought  in  a  Bill  "  for  the  removal  of  the  religious 
disabilities  of  Roman  Catholics  to  hold  the  offices  of  Lord 
Chancellor  of  England  and  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland." 
It  was  opposed  by  the  Unionist  Government  then  in  power, 
and  was  defeated  by  256  votes  to  223.  It  was  known  as 
"  The  Ripon  and  Russell  Relief  Bill,"  as  it  was  well  under- 
stood that  if  the  Bill  were  carried  Gladstone,  on  his  return 
to  office,  intended  to  make  the  then  Lord  Ripon,  who  was 
a  Catholic,  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland  ;  and  Sir  Charles 
Russell,  also  a  Catholic,  Lord  Chancellor  of  England. 

3 

The  process  by  which  the  Government  is  formed  is, 
constitutionally,  most  interesting  ;  but  even  in  the  best  of 
circumstances,  and  apart  altogether  from  the  limitations 
to  his  unfettered  choice  which  I  have  set  out,  it  must  indeed 
be  harassing  to  the  Prime  Minister.  If  his  power  and 
influence  are  great,  so  are  his  embarrassments  and  difficulties. 
'*  Lord  Grey  is  in  a  dreadful  state  of  anxiety  and  annoyance  ; 
thinks  he  shall  break  down  under  his  load,"  wrote  Lord 
Tavistock  to  his  brother.  Lord  John  Russell,  in  1830,  during 
the  making  of  the  first  Reform  Administration.  Disraeli, 
speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  March  1873,  described 
the  constitution  of  a  new  Government  as  "  a  work  of  great 
time,  great  labour,  and  of  great  responsibility,"  and 
declared  that  the  task  had  to  be  discharged  solely  by  the 
Prime  Minister.  "It  is  a  duty  which  can  be  delegated  to 
no  one,"  he  said.  "  All  the  correspondence  and  all  the 
interviews  must  be  conducted  by  himself,  and,  without 
dwelling  on  the  sense  of  responsibility  involved,  the  percep- 
tion of  fitness  requisite,  and  the  severe  impartiality  necessary 
in  deciding  on  contending  claims,  the  mere  physical  effort 
is  not  slight."  The  only  Prime  Minister,  perhaps,  who 
approached  the  task  of  making  an  Administration  with  a 


150    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

sense    of  gaiety    not    unmingled    with    irresponsibility   was 
Lord  Palmerston.     He  had  the  engaging  weakness  of  putting 
square  men  in  round  holes  and  round  men  in  square  holes, 
and   the   reconstruction   of  the   Ministry   which   sometimes 
followed  as  a  consequence  was,  to  him,  only  a  fresh  source 
of  laughter.     "  Ah,  ha  !  "    he  would  cry,  "  what  a  delightful 
comedy    of    errors  !  "     Gladstone,    while    revelling    in    the 
power  and  authority  of  the  position,  was  deeply  impressed 
also  by  its  gravity  and  solemnity.     He  writes  in  his  diary, 
January  29,  1886  :    "  At  a  quarter  after  midnight  in  came 
Sir    H.    Ponsonby    with    verbal    communication    from    Her 
Majesty,    which    I    at    once  accepted."     It    was   the    com- 
mand to  form   his  third  Administration,    that   which  came 
quickly    to    grief    on    the   question    of   Home  Rule.     Next 
day,    Saturday,    was    spent    by    Gladstone    in    consultation 
with    his    principal    colleagues.     After    church    on    Sunday, 
from  one  o'clock  till  eight,  political  business  engrossed  his 
attention.     "  At  night  came  a  painful  and  harassing  succes- 
sion of  letters,"  he  writes,   "  and  my  sleep  for  once  gave 
way  ;    yet  for  the  soul  it  was  profitable,  driving  me  to  the 
hope  that   the   strength   of  God   might   be   made   manifest 
in  my  weakness."     Next  morning  he  went  down  to  Osborne 
to  attend  the  Queen,  had  two  audiences  with  her  Majesty, 
an  hour  and  a  half  in  all,  and  in  the  evening  returned  to 
London.     He  writes   in   his  diary  the  following  day  :     "  I 
kissed  hands,  and  am  thereby  Prime  Minister  for  the  third 
time.    But,  as  I  trust,  for  a  brief  time  only — slept  well.  D.  G." 
John  Morley,  summarizing    in    his  Life  of  Gladstone  the 
correspondence    which    Gladstone    received    while    he    was 
engaged    in    forming    an    Administration,    writes  :      "  One 
admirable  man  with  intrepid  naivete  proposed   himself   for 
the  Cabinet,  but  was  not  admitted  ;    another  no  less  admir- 
able was  pressed  to  enter,  but  felt  that  he  could  be  more 
useful  as  an  independent  Member,  and  declined — an  honour- 
able  transaction,    repeated   by   the   same   person   on    more 
than  one  occasion  later.     To  one  excellent  member  of  his 
former  Cabinet  the  Prime  Minister  proposed  the  Chairmanship 
of   Committees,    and    it    was    with    some    tartness    refused. 
Another  equally  excellent  member  of  the  old  Administration 
he    endeavoured    to    plant    out   in  the  Viceregal   Lodge  in 


HOW   A   GOVERNMENT   IS   MADE     151 

Dublin,  without  the  Cabinet,  but  in  vain.  To  a  third  he 
proposed  the  Indian  Viceroyalty,  and  received  an  answer 
that  left  him  '  stunned  and  out  of  breath.'  " 

It  is  also  entertaining  to  study  the  varied  feelings  with 
which  politicians  have  received  the  offer  of  office.  "  Dear 
Henry,"  wrote  Robert  Lowe  in  a  brief,  laconic  note  to  his 
brother  in  December  1868,  "  I  am  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer with  everything  to  learn.  Yours  affectionately.'- 
It  was  the  surprise  appointment  of  Gladstone's  first  Adminis- 
tration, for  Lowe  had  previously  shown  but  little  interest 
in  finance.  His  administration  of  the  office  soon  ended  in 
an  abortive  attempt  to  impose  a  tax  on  matches.  In 
another  letter  to  a  friend,  Lowe  said  :  "  I  have  this  day 
accepted  the  office  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  Glad- 
stone's Government.  I  am  almost  angry  with  myself  for 
not  being  more  pleased.  One  gets  these  things,  but  gets 
them  too  late.  Ten  years  ago  I  should  have  been  very 
differently  affected.  However,  it  is  something  to  have 
done  what  I  said  I  would  do."  It  was  a  curious  frame  of 
mind  in  which  to  enter  upon  a  great  office.  He  had  said 
he  would  be  a  Cabinet  Minister,  and  the  thing  had  come 
to  pass.     That  was  all. 

That  eminent  lawyer,  John  Duke  Coleridge,  returned 
home  from  a  concert  on  the  night  of  December  4,  1868,  to 
find — as  he  records  in  his  diary — "  Gladstone's  messenger 
waiting  with  an  offer  of  the  S.G.,  Collier  to  be  A.G."  The 
letter  of  the  Prime  Minister  was  written  from  "11  Carlton 
House  Terrace,"  and  marked  "  Most  Private."  "  I  need 
not  spend  words,"  said  Gladstone,  "  in  assuring  you  that  I 
anticipate  great  advantage  to  the  new  Government  from 
your  most  valuable  aid,  and  that  I  look  forward  with  great 
pleasure  to  the  relations  which  will,  I  hope,  be  established 
between  us."  Coleridge  sent  the  messenger  back  with  a 
note  refusing  the  post  absolutely.  He  doubted  whether,  as 
Solicitor-General,  he  could  serve  with  satisfaction  under  the 
proposed  Attorney-General,  Sir  Robert  Collier.  "  I  know 
well,"  he  wrote,  "  that  a  man  who  once  puts  office  by  puts 
it  by  probably  for  ever  ;  and  you  will  not  suppose  that  I 
send  this  answer  without  regret  and  a  considerable  struggle. 
But  I  am  sure  it  is  my  duty  to   do  it,"      Next  morning 


152    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Coleridge  received  another  letter  inviting  him  to  come  to 
11  Carlton  House  Terrace.  "  So  I  had  to  go  to  him,'* 
Coleridge  writes  on  December  5th.  "  He  was  most  kind, 
and  urged  me  to  accept."  Two  days  later  he  says  :  "  So 
the  deed  is  done,  and  I  suppose  in  a  few  days  I  shall  be 
Minister."  On  Saturday,  December  10th,  he  went  down 
to  Windsor,  "  with  a  lot  of  Ministers  coming  in  and  going 
out,"  had  luncheon,  saw  the  Queen,  and  was  knighted. 
"  I  could  not  help  it,"  he  adds.  What  chance  had  his  weak 
human  disinclination  for  office  against  the  working  of 
resistless,  inevitable  Fate  ? 

At  a  Press  Club  dinner  in  London,  John  Morley  related 
the  circumstances  in  which  he  received  and  accepted  in 
1886  the  offer  of  the  post  of  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  with 
a  seat  in  the  Cabinet.  "  It  was  whilst  I  was  writing  a  leading 
article  for  a  certain  periodical,  said  he,  "  that  I  received 
a  letter  from  an  illustrious  statesman,  who  was  then  forming 
a  Government,  offering  me  a  post  in  his  Cabinet."  "  Gentle- 
men," he  added,  amid  the  cheers  and  the  laughter  of  the 
company,  "  so  strong  in  me  was  the  journalistic  instinct 
that,  after  accepting  the  illustrious  statesman's  offer,  I 
went  back  and  finished  that  leading  article.  And  I  can 
assure  you  that  neither  the  grammar  nor  the  style  of  the 
latter  half  of  the  article  fell  short  of  my  usual  standard." 
One  of  the  most  humanly  interesting  books  dealing  with 
public  life  in  England  is  From  a  Stonemason's  Bench  to  the 
Treasury  Bench,  in  which  Henry  Broadhurst  tells  the  story 
of  his  career.  In  1886  he  was  Secretary  to  the  Parliamentary 
Committee  of  the  Trades  Union  Congress  and  a  Member 
of  Parliament.  One  busy  day  at  his  office  a  letter  was 
handed  to  him  by  a  messenger,  and,  opening  the  envelope, 
he  found  the  following  communication  : 

(Secret)  21  Carlton  House  Terrace,  S.W. 

February  5,  1886. 
Dear  Mr.  Broadhurst, 

I  have  great  pleasure  in  proposing  to  you  that  you  should 
accept  office  as  Under-Secretary  of  State  in  the  Home  Department. 
Alike  on  private  and  on  public  grounds,  I  trust  it  may  be  agreeable 
to  you  to  accept  this  appointment,  which  should  remain  strictly  secret 
until  your  name  shall  have  been  laid  before  her  Majesty. 

I  remain,  with  much  regard,  sincerely  yours, 

\V«  E,  Gladston]^, 


HOW   A   GOVERNMENT   IS   MADE     153 

According  to  custom,  Broadhurst  immediately  called 
upon  the  Prime  Minister.  He  said  that  if  it  were  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's wish  that  he  should  join  the  Administration,  he 
hoped  it  would  be  in  some  capacity  less  important  than 
that  of  Under-Secretary  of  the  Home  Office.  But  the  Prime 
Minister  would  not  listen  to  any  objections  to  the  offer. 
"I'll  answer  for  you  myself,"  said  he,  playfully.  "  You 
must  prepare  at  once  to  enter  upon  the  duties  of  the  office." 
Broadhurst  adds  :  "  I  can  honestly  declare  that  I  left  Mr. 
Gladstone's  house  without  any  of  those  feelings  of  exhilara- 
tion and  pleasing  excitement  which  the  gift  of  office  is 
generally  supposed  to  awake  in  the  breast  of  the  politician." 
He  lived  the  hard  struggle  of  his  early  years  over  again  in 
the  next  half-hour.  "  The  lowly  beginning  of  my  career," 
he  says,  "  its  labours  at  the  forge  and  the  stonemason's 
shop,  the  privations,  the  wanderings,  and  my  varying 
fortunes,  stood  out  in  my  mind's  eye  as  clearly  as  so  many 
living  pictures.  Especially  did  my  memory  recall  the  months 
I  had  spent  working  on  the  very  Government  buildings 
which  I  was  about  to  enter  as  a  Minister  of  the  Crown." 
He  deplored  the  lack  of  education  in  his  early  days,  and 
visions  of  failure  and  humiliation  in  the  discharge  of  his 
new  duties,  in  consequence,  tormented  him. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

DISAPPOINTED   HOPES 


It  is  probably  as  annoying  to  an  expectant  Minister  to  be 
offered  what  he  regards  as  an  inferior  post  as  to  be  entirely 
ignored.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  December  1834,  offered  Lord 
Ashley  (subsequently  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury)  a  seat  on 
the  Board  of  Admiralty,  which  Lord  Ashley,  thinking  it 
altogether  beneath  him,  promptly  refused.  "  Had  I  not," 
he  writes  in  his  Diary,  "  by  God's  grace  and  the  study  of 
religion  subdued  the  passion  of  my  youth,  I  should  now 
have  been  heart-broken.  Canning,  eight  years  ago,  offered 
me,  as  a  neophyte,  a  seat  at  one  of  the  Boards,  the  first 
step  in  a  young  statesman's  life.  If  I  am  not  now  worthy 
of  more,  it  is  surely  better  to  cease  to  be  a  candidate  for 
public  honours.  Yet  Peel's  letter,  so  full  of  flummery, 
would  lead  any  one  to  believe  that  I  was  a  host  of  excellency. 
The  thing  is  a  contradiction."  Nevertheless,  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  he  accepted  the  post  subsequently.  He  satisfied 
himself  that  it  was  of  more  importance  than  he  at  first 
supposed. 

No  politician  had  such  curious  adventures  as  an  aspirant 
to  office,  and  certainly  no  one  has  confessed  so  freely  the 
bitterness  of  his  disappointments,  as  Shaftesbury,  whose 
name  is  so  honourably  associated  with  legislation  for  the 
protection  of  women  and  children  employed  in  factories. 
In  1839  Peel  was  again  engaged  in  making  a  Government. 
Queen  Victoria  had  hardly  been  two  years  on  the  Throne, 
and  was  only  twenty  years  of  age.  Peel  invited  Lord 
Ashley  to  accept  a  post  in  the  Royal  Household,  urging  that 

16i 


DISAPPOINTED   HOPES  155 

he  desired  to  have  around  "  this  young  woman,  on  whose 
moral  and  rcHgious  character  depends  the  welfare  of  millions 
of  human  beings,"  persons  whose  conversation  would  tend 
to  her  moral  improvement.  Lord  Ashley  acknowledges 
that  he  was  "  thunderstruck "  when  he  received  Peel's 
letter,  as  he  expected  a  far  higher  position  than  what  he 
describes  as  "  a  mere  Court  puppet."  But  in  his  reply  he 
said,  somewhat  sarcastically,  that  if  Peel  desired  it,  he  was 
willing  to  take  "  the  office  of  chief  scullion  to  the  Court." 
However,  this  Administration  was  not  constituted.  It  was 
wrecked  on  what  is  known  as  "  the  Bedchamber  question." 
As  one  of  the  ladies  of  the  Bedchamber,  the  Mistress  of 
the  Robes,  who  was  most  closely  in  attendance  upon  Queen 
Victoria,  was  related  to  some  of  the  outgoing  Whig  Ministers, 
by  whom  she  had  been  appointed — the  office  being  at  the 
time  political,  and  its  occupant  bound  to  go  out  on  a 
change  of  Government — Peel  insisted  upon  her  resignation. 
The  Queen  refused  to  consent  to  such  a  course,  as  one 
repugnant  to  her  feelings,  and  Peel,  thereupon  refusing  to 
form  an  Administration,  the  Melbourne  Ministry  were 
recalled  to  office.  Two  years  later  Peel  was  engaged  once 
more  in  making  a  Government — this  time  Queen  Victoria 
raised  no  objection  to  the  Mistress  of  the  Robes  being 
changed — and  again  he  offered  Lord  Ashley  a  place  in  the 
Royal  Household,  as  a  man  who  was  deeply  religious  and 
moral.  Lord  Ashley  now  believed  that  Peel  simply  wanted 
to  muzzle  him,  the  leader  of  the  growing  humanitarian 
movement  for  the  State  regulation  of  factories.  He  refused 
the  office.  "  I  told  Peel,"  he  wrote,  "  the  case  was  altered  ; 
the  Court  was  no  longer  the  same  ;  the  Queen  was  two  years 
older,  had  a  child,  and  a  husband  to  take  care  of  her."  So 
he  declined  to  devote  himself  to  ordering  dinners  and  carrying 
a  white  wand.  He  discovered  subsequently,  to  his  deep 
mortification,    that   Peel    had   already   offered   the   post   of 

Vice-Chamberlain   of  the   Household   to   Lord   ("  the 

hero  of  Madame  Grisi,"  as  Ashley  describes  him)  ;    and  that 

Lord exclaimed  :  "  Thank  God,  my  character  is  too  bad 

for  a  Household  place  !  "  Lord  Ashley  argued  that 
"  morality,  therefore,  was  not  the  reason  for  putting  me 
at  Court." 


156     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 


On  January  27,  1855,  the  Coalition  Government  of 
Lord  Aberdeen  and  Lord  John  Russell  resigned,  being 
defeated  on  a  vote  of  censure  charging  them  with  mis- 
management of  the  Crimean  War.  Lord  Palmerston  received 
the  commands  of  Queen  Victoria  to  form  an  Administration. 
He,  too,  desired  to  have  a  Ministry  of  both  Liberals  and 
Conservatives.  On  February  7th  he  wrote  to  Ashley — 
now  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  and  a  Conservative — offering 
him  the  Chancellorship  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  with  a 
seat  in  the  Cabinet.  That  was  in  the  morning.  In  the 
afternoon  Shaftesbury  received  a  brief  note  from  Palmerston 
requesting  him  to  "  consider  the  offer  as  suspended,"  in 
consequence  of  unforeseen  difficulties,  which,  it  subsequently 
transpired,  were  the  claims  of  the  Liberals  for  a  greater  share 
of  place  and  power  in  the  new  Government.  This  explana- 
tion came  to  Shaftesbury  from  Lady  Palmerston.  "  Palmer- 
ston is  distracted  with  all  the  worry  he  has  to  go  through," 
she  wrote.  In  a  P.S.  she  added  :  "  It  is  no  pleasure  to 
form  a  Government  when  there  are  so  many  unreasonable 
people  to  please,  and  so  many  interested  people  pressing 
for  their  own  gratification  and  vanity,  without  any  regard 
to  the  public  good  or  the  interests  of  the  Government  and 
country."  Shaftesbury  thus  poured  out  his  virtuously 
indignant  soul  on  the  subject  to  his  son  :  "  The  selfishness, 
the  meanness,  the  love  of  place  and  salary,  the  oblivion 
of  the  country,  of  man's  welfare  and  God's  honour,  have 
never  been  more  striking  and  terrible  than  in  this  crisis. 
These,  added  to  the  singular  conceit  of  all  the  candidates 
for  office  (and  all  have  aspired  to  the  highest),  have  thrown 
stumbling-blocks  in  Palmerston's  path  at  every  step.  The 
greediness  and  vanity  of  our  place-hunters  have  combined 
to  make  each  one  of  them  a  union  of  the  vulture  and  the 
peacock." 

Shaftesbury  declares  that  he  had  then  no  desire  for 
place  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  the  genuineness  of 
the  thanksgiving  on  his  "  escape  from  office  "  in  which  he 
indulges.  A  month  later  some  of  the  IMembers  of  the  Adminis- 
tration resigned,  and  Palmerston  again  offered  Shaftesbury 


DISAPPOINTED   HOPES  157 

the  Chancellorship  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster.  But  Shaftes- 
bury was  still  reluctant.  "  I  could  not  satisfy  myself," 
he  says,  "  that  to  accept  office  was  a  Divine  call.  I  was 
satisfied  that  God  had  called  me  to  labour  among  the  poor." 
However,  one  morning  he  received  this  note  from  Lady 
Palmerston  :  "  Palmerston  is  very  anxious  now  that  you 
should  put  on  your  undress  uniform  and  be  at  the  Palace 
a  quarter  before  three  to  be  sworn  in.  Pray  do  this,  and 
I  am  sure  you  will  not  repent  it."  Shaftesbury  gave  way 
to  these  pleading  entreaties.  The  result  was  certainly 
curious.  "  I  went  and  dressed,"  he  writes  in  his  Diary, 
"  and  then,  while  I  was  waiting  for  the  carriage,  I  went 
down  on  my  knees  and  prayed  for  counsel,  wisdom  and 
understanding.  Then  there  was  someone  at  the  door,  as 
I  thought  to  say  that  the  carriage  was  ready.  But  instead 
of  that  a  note,  hurriedly  written  in  pencil,  was  put  into 
my  hand.  It  was  from  Palmerston — '  Don't  go  to  the 
Palace.'  "  Many  would  have  groaned  in  the  anguish  of 
their  souls  over  this  crowning  disappointment.  Shaftesbury 
declares  he  danced  with  joy.  "  It  was  to  my  mind,"  he 
says,  "  as  distinctly  an  act  of  special  Providence  as  when 
the  hand  of  Abraham  was  stayed  and  Isaac  escaped." 
Palmerston's  sudden  change  of  mind  is  no  doubt  accounted 
for  in  a  passage  which  I  find  in  the  Autobiography  of  the 
eighth  Duke  of  Argyll,  who  was  a  member  of  Palmerston's 
Cabinet.  He  states  that  one  day  Palmerston  astonished 
all  his  colleagues  by  proposing  that  Lord  Shaftesbury  should 
be  one  of  their  number.  "  I  was  far  too  fond  of  Shaftesbury, 
and  had  much  too  great  a  respect  for  him  to  say  one  word 
in  opposition,"  Argyll  writes  ;  "  but  I  saw  that  it  rather 
took  away  the  breath  from  a  good  many  of  my  colleagues. 
His  fervid  nature,  his  uncompromising  temperament,  and 
his  somewhat  individual  opinions  were  evidently  not  con- 
sidered as  promising  well  for  united  councils.  My  opinion, 
which,  however,  I  kept  to  myself,  was  that  he  was  a  far 
more  valuable  man  out  of  office  than  in  it."  Argyll 
adds  :  "  Palmerston  evidently  saw  that  the  proposal  was 
not  very  well  received,  and  we  heard  nothing  more 
of  it." 


158     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 


In  July  1886  Henry  Cecil  Raikes,  a  distinguished  Conserva- 
tive M.P.,  awaited,  with  hope  and  misgiving  alternating 
in  his  breast,  a  letter  from  Lord  Salisbury — then  engaged 
in  forming  his  first  Unionist  Administration — inviting  him 
to  join  the  Cabinet.  As  the  list  of  Ministerial  appointments 
announced  in  the  Press  grew  towards  completion,  and 
nothing  was  heard  from  the  Prime  Minister,  the  fear  grew 
upon  him  that  he  was  about  to  be  shelved.  But  he  had 
staunch  friends  at  the  Carlton  Club,  and  they  took  the 
unusual  course  of  addressing  a  "  round-robin  "  to  Salisbury, 
earnestly  requesting  him  not  to  forget  "  the  long  and  arduous 
services  to  the  Party  "  of  Henry  Cecil  Raikes.  A  day  or 
two  later  Raikes  received  the  following  letter  from  the 
Prime  Minister  ; 

20  Ablington  Street,  S.W., 

July  28,  1886. 
My  Dear  Raikes, 

Are  you  disposed  to  join  us  as  Postmaster- General  ?  I 
am  very  anxious  to  meet  your  views.  I  wish  I  was  in  a  position  to 
do  so  more  fully.  But  that  is  a  species  of  regret  which  clogs  me  at 
every  step  of  the  arduous  task  in  which  I  am  engaged.  I  shall  be 
very  glad  if  we  are  able  to  persuade  you  to  associate  yourself  with 
us — for  the  present  in  this  office. 

Believe  me,  yours  very  truly, 

Salisbury. 

Only  the  minor  post  of  Postmaster-General,  when  he 
had  expected  the  Home  Office,  which  carries  a  seat  in  the 
Cabinet  !  But  to  refuse  an  offer  of  office  because  it  does 
not  come  up  to  one's  expectations  often  means  the  exclusion 
from  office  for  ever.  Raikes  accordingly  decided  to  take 
the  post  of  Postmaster-General.  "  He  fully  recognized 
the  difficulties  of  his  chief's  position,"  writes  his  son  and 
biographer,  "  and,  of  course,  was  not  blind  to  the  fact  that 
if  he  were  to  refuse  this  office  he  would  probably  be  throw- 
ing away  the  substance  for  the  shadow,  and  would  cut 
himself  off  from  any  but  a  remote  chance  of  future  advance- 
ment." It  is  not  every  politician  who  has  had  an  offer  of 
an  office  which  was  less  than  he  expected  that  can  follow 


DISAPPOINTED   HOPES  159 

the  example  of  Henry  Brougham,  who  contemptuously 
tore  up  the  letter  of  Earl  Grey  offering  him  the  post  of 
Attorney  -  General  in  the  first  Reform  Administration. 
Brougham  wanted  the  Lord  Chancellorship,  and  would  not 
be  put  off  with  anything  else  ;  and  though  Grey  was  reluctant 
to  trust  Brougham  in  so  exalted  a  post,  Brougham  had 
his  way,  for  he  was  in  the  strong  position  of  being  indispen- 
sable to  the  new  Government,  not  only  in  his  own  estimation, 
which  did  not  so  much  matter,  but  also  in  the  estimation 
of  many  leading  Whigs,  which  did.  But  Raikes  knew  that 
he  could  be  done  without,  and,  sensible  man,  he  accepted 
what  was  offered.  Naturally  he  was  mortified  that  the 
Secretaryship  of  State  for  the  Home  Department  was  carried 
off  by  an  entirely  outside  and  unsuspected  rival,  Henry 
Matthews  (afterwards  Lord  Llandaff),  who  was  discovered 
in  the  Law  Courts  as  a  powerful  advocate  and  pleader  by 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill. 


Is  there  anything  more  poignant  in  the  history  of  the 
making  of  Governments  than  the  entreaty  addressed  by 
Benjamin  Disraeli  to  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  1841,  that  he  should 
not  be  forgotten  in  the  distribution  of  the  offices  in  the 
Tory  Administration  which  was  then  being  formed  ?  Writing 
from  Grosvenor  Gate  on  September  5,  1841,  and  addressing 
"  Dear  Sir  Robert,"  Disraeli  said  he  should  not  dwell  upon 
his  services  to  the  Tory  Party,  though  since  1834  he  had 
fought  four  contests,  expended  large  sums  of  money,  and 
exerted  his  intelligence  to  the  utmost  for  the  propagation 
of  Peel's  policy.  He  adds  :  "  But  there  is  one  peculiarity' 
in  my  case  on  which  I  cannot  be  silent.  I  have  had  to 
struggle  against  a  storm  of  political  hate  and  malice,  which 
few  men  ever  experienced,  from  the  moment — at  the  insti- 
gation of  a  member  of  your  Cabinet — I  enrolled  myself 
under  your  banner,  and  I  have  only  been  sustained  under 
these  trials  by  the  conviction  that  the  day  would  come 
when  the  foremost  man  of  this  country  would  publicly 
testify  that  he  had  some  respect  for  my  ability  and  my 
character."  Then,  throwing  all  reserve  aside,  he  ends 
his  letter  with  the  following  outburst  of  genuine  feeling  : 


160     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

"  I  confess  to  be  unrecognized  at  this  moment  by  you 
appears  to  me  to  be  overwhelming,  and  I  appeal  to  your 
own  heart — to  that  justice  and  magnanimity  which  I  feel 
are  your  characteristics — to  save  me  from  an  intolerable 
humiliation." 
/  The    same    post    brought    the    Prime    Minister    a    most 

appealing  letter  signed,  "  Mary  Anne  Disraeli,"  addressed 
"Dear  Sir  Robert  Peel,"  and  marked  "Confidential." 
She  begins  :  "  I  beg  you  not  to  be  angry  with  me  for 
my  intrusion,  but  I  am  overwhelmed  with  anxiety.  My 
husband's  political  career  is  for  ever  crushed  if  you  do  not 
appreciate  him.  Mr.  Disraeli's  exertions  are  not  unknown 
to  you  ;  but  there  is  much  he  has  done  that  you  cannot 
be  aware  of,  though  they  have  no  other  aim  but  to  do  you 
honour,  no  wish  for  recompense,  but  your  approbation." 
Her  husband  had  made  Peel's  opponents  his  personal 
enemies,  she  goes  on  ;  he  had  stood  four  expensive  elections 
since  1834.  "  Literature,"  she  concludes,  "  he  has  aban- 
doned for  politics.  Do  not  destroy  all  his  hopes,  and  make 
him  feel  his  life  has  been  a  mistake." 

Peel's  reply  was  cold  and  formal.  He  disliked  Disraeli, 
regarding  him  as  a  political  adventurer,  and  disliked  him 
personally.  "  My  dear  sir,"  he  addresses  him,  and,  fastening 
on  the  statement  that  Disraeli  had  joined  the  Tory  Party 
at  the  instigation  of  a  member  of  Peel's  former  Cabinet, 
he  declares  that  no  one  had  ever  got  from  him  the  slightest 
authority  to  make  such  a  communication.  Then  Peel  gives 
a  remarkable  account  of  the  difficulties  which  beset  him  in 
constituting  the  new  Government : 

But,  quite  independently  of  this  consideration,  I  should  have 
been  very  happy,  had  it  been  in  my  power,  to  avail  myself  of  your 
offer  of  service  ;  and  your  letter  is  one  of  the  many  I  receive  which 
too  forcibly  impress  upon  me  how  painful  and  invidious  is  the  duty 
which  I  have  been  compelled  to  undertake.  I  am  only  supported  in  it 
by  the  consciousness  that  my  desire  has  been  to  do  justice. 

I  trust,  also,  that  when  candidates  for  parliamentary  office  calmly 
reflect  on  my  position,  and  the  appointments  I  have  made — when 
they  review  the  names  of  those  previously  connected  with  me  in  public 
life  whom  I  have  been  absolutely  compelled  to  exclude,  the  claims 
founded  on  acceptance  in  1834  with  the  almost  hopeless  prospects 
of  that  day,  the  claims,  too,  founded  on  new  Party  combinatioua — 


DISAPPOINTED   HOPES  161 

I  trust  they  will  then  understand  how  perfectly  insufficient  are  the 
means  at  my  disposal  to  meet  the  wishes  that  are  conveyed  to  me 
by  men  whose  co-operation  I  should  be  proud  to  have  and  whose 
qualifications  and  pretensions  for  office  I  do  not  contest. 


Disraeli,  writing  from  Grosvenor  Gate,  September  8, 
1841,  hastens  to  explain  that  he  never  intended  to  even 
suggest,  much  less  to  say,  that  a  promise  of  official  promotion 
had  ever  been  made  to  him  at  any  time  by  any  member  of 
Peel's  Cabinet.  "  Parliamentary  office,"  he  says,  "  should 
be  the  recognition  of  Party  services  and  parliamentary 
ability,  and  as  such  only  was  it  to  me  an  object  of  ambition." 
He  ends  with  a  dignified  touch  of  pathos  :  "If  such  a 
pledge  had  been  given  me  by  yourself,  and  not  redeemed, 
I  should  have  taken  refuge  in  silence.  Not  to  be  appreciated 
may  be  mortification  ;  to  be  baulked  of  a  promised  reward 
is  only  a  vulgar  accident  of  life,  to  be  borne  without  a 
murmur." 

Five  years  passed,  and  in  the  debate  on  the  third  reading 
of  the  Bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Duties,  Disraeli,  from 
the  back  Ministerial  benches,  made  a  scathing  attack  upon 
Peel   and  what  he  called   his  betrayal  of  the  Tory  Party 
in   bringing  in  such  a  Bill  to  establish  Free  Trade.     The 
Prime    Minister,    in    reply,    disclosed    to    the    country    the 
curious   incidents   of  1841.     "  It   is   still   more   surprising," 
said  he,  "  that  if  such  were  the  hon.  gentleman's  views  of 
my  character  he  should  have  been  ready,  as  I  think  he  was, 
to  unite  his  fortunes  with  mine  in  office,  thereby  implying 
the  strongest  proof  which  a  public  man  can  give  of  confidence 
in  the  honour  and  integrity  of  a  Minister  of  the  Crown." 
Disraeli  rose  at  once  to  make  a  personal  explanation.     He 
denied  that  his  opposition  to  the  Free  Trade  policy  of  the 
Prime    Minister    was    inspired    by    his    disappointment    of 
office.     He  was  not   an   applicant   for  office   in    1841.     "  I 
never  shall — it  is  totally  foreign  to  my  nature — make  an 
application  for  any  place,"  he  cried.     "  Whatever  occurred 
in    1841    between   the   right   hon.   gentleman   and   myself," 
said  he,   "  was  entirely  attributable  to  the  intervention  of 
another  gentleman,  whom  I  supposed  to  be  in  the  confidence 
of  the  right  hon.  baronet,  and  I  daresay  it  may  have  arisen 
VOL.  I.  11 


162     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

from  a  misconception."  The  correspondence  which  I  have 
quoted  was  not  published  until  long  afterwards.  The  abrupt 
ending  of  the  incident  in  the  House  of  Commons  is  strange 
in  the  light  thrown  upon  it  by  the  correspondence.  Accord- 
ing to  the  report  in  Hansard,  Peel  made  no  reply  to  Disraeli. 
Peel  held  the  correspondence  in  his  hands,  and  resisted  the 
temptation  to  read  it  and  crush  Disraeli,  because  he  was 
advised  by  one  of  his  colleagues  that  the  disclosure  of  a 
private  application  for  office  would  be  contrary  to  the  high 
and  honourable  traditions  of  statesmanship. 


Gladstone  agreed  with  Peel  that  it  was  not  advisable 
to  put  a  man  into  the  Cabinet  without  a  previous  official 
training.  It  was  also  Gladstone's  custom,  once  he  had 
invited  a  man  to  office,  to  hold  on  to  him  to  the  last  possible 
moment.  "  The  next  most  serious  thing  to  admitting  a 
man  into  the  Cabinet,"  said  he,  mentioning  one  of  the 
principles  which  guided  him  in  the  making  of  a  Government, 
"  is  to  leave  a  man  out  who  has  once  been  in."  Still,  there 
were  occasions  when  he  was  compelled  to  pass  over  an  old 
comrade-in-arms  on  the  ground  of  age.  He  was  himself 
seventy-one  years  of  age  when,  in  1880,  he  was  called  upon 
to  form  his  second  Government.  To  one  old  member  of 
his  former  Administration  he  wrote  :  "  I  do  not  feel  able 
to  ask  you  to  resume  the  toils  of  office."  He  admitted  that 
he  himself  was  "  the  oldest  man  of  his  political  generation," 
and  that,  therefore,  he  should  be  a  solecism  in  the  Govern- 
ment which  he  was  engaged  in  constructing.  "  I  have 
been  brought,"  he  added,  "  by  the  seeming  force  of  excep- 
tional circumstances  to  undertake  a  task  requiring  less  of 
years  and  more  of  vigour  than  my  accumulating  store  of 
the  one  and  waning  residue  of  the  other."  Here  we  have 
the  answer  to  the  question  of  age  and  office.  The  exclusion 
of  a  veteran  politician  from  office  is  not  a  matter  of  the 
number  of  years  he  has  counted.  Is  he  an  extinct  political 
volcano  as  well  as  an  old  man  ?  May  he  safely  be  set  aside  ? 
On  the  answer  which  the  Prime  Minister  gives  to  these 
(questions  in  his  own  mind  depends  the  fate  of  the  office- 


DISAPPOINTED   HOPES  163 

seeker  of  advanced  years.  Gladstone  was  eighty-four  in 
1893,  but  he  "was  still  inevitable  as  Prime  Minister.  If  the 
strong  }''oung  man  of  achievement,  and  still  greater  promise, 
cannot  be  ignored,  neither  can  the  old  man,  who,  having 
built  up  a  commanding  reputation,  takes  care  that  it  is 
duly  and  fittingly  recognized. 

It  is  a  singular  thing  that,  among  the  twelve  hundred 
men  or  so  who  constitute  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament, 
there  has  never  been  any  reluctance  to  take  office.  Probably 
the  only  instance  of  a  public  man  who  had  a  positive  repug- 
nance of  office  was  Lord  Althorp,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  and  Leader  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  the 
Grey  and  Melbourne  Administrations  from  November  1830 
to  December  1834.  Office  destroyed  all  his  happiness,  he 
declared,  and  so  affected  his  mind  that  he  had  to  remove 
his  pistols  from  his  bedroom  lest  he  should  be  tempted  to 
shoot  himself.  He  remained  in  office  because  he  felt  that 
one  in  his  rank  and  position — born,  as  it  were,  to  the  purple, 
a  member  of  one  of  the  great  territorial  families,  who  boast 
of  long  lines  of  ancestors  in  the  public  service — could  no  more 
set  aside  the  responsibility  of  office  than  the  earldom  and 
broad  acres  of  which  he  was  also  the  heir.  The  one  consola- 
tion he  derived  from  the  death  of  his  brother,  Earl  Spencer, 
was  that  his  own  accession  to  the  House  of  Lords  compelled 
him  to  lay  down  the  burden  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 
Sir  George  Cornewell  Lewis  seems  to  have  been  animated  by 
somewhat  the  same  uncommonly  high  sense  of  duty.  When 
Palmerston,  in  the  forming  of  his  Administration  in  1855, 
offered  him  the  post  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  which 
Gladstone  had  vacated,  he  says  he  entertained  the  strongest 
disinclination  to  accept  the  office.  "  I  felt,  however,"  he 
writes,  "  that  in  the  peculiar  position  of  the  Government  " — 
they  were  in  difficulties  over  the  Crimean  War — "  refusal  was 
scarcely  honourable,  and  would  be  attributable  to  cowardice, 
and  I  therefore,  most  reluctantly,  made  up  my  mind  to 
accept  it." 

But  these  cases  of  objection  to  office  on  the  part  of 
public  men,  however  wealthy  or  however  old,  are  exceedingly 
rare.  The  hunt  for  posts  when  a  new  Government  is  being 
formed  after  a  dissolution  is  eager  and  untiring.     The  old 


164    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

men,  who  will  not  admit  that  their  weight  of  years  unfits 
them  for  the  cares  of  office,  haunt  the  political  clubs  and 
Downing  Street,  so  as  to  keep  themselves  conspicuous  in 
the  eyes  of  the  new  Prime  Minister.  But  they  cannot  all 
get  "  jobs,"  to  use  a  word  commonly  employed  while  a  Govern- 
ment is  being  made.  Some  of  them  must  be  sacrificed  ; 
there  are  so  many  able  and  pushful  young  men  to  be  provided 
for.  The  same  cry  is  heard  in  politics  as  in  other  walks  of 
life  :  "  Why  should  these  old  fellows  lag  superfluous  on 
the  stage  ?  "  But  "  the  old  gang  " — as  they  are  called 
by  the  young — will  not  retire  from  public  life  voluntarily 
and  gracefully.  It  is  not  alone  that  they  instinctively 
revolt  against  the  assumption  that  their  capacity  for  work 
is  at  an  end,  but  they  also  dislike  change  of  habits  and 
pursuits,  and,  above  all,  they  desire  for  a  little  longer  to 
play  a  leading  part  on  the  prominent  stage  of  Parliament. 
Public  life,  therefore,  retires  from  them.  It  is  only  the  few 
who  have  made  a  great  reputation  and  acquired  a  great 
authority  that  cannot  lightly  be  set  aside.  For  most  poli- 
ticians, no  matter  how  fine  their  services  in  the  past,  a 
time  comes  when  they  are  designated  "  old  fogeys,"  and, 
while  still  anxious  to  be  once  more  Ministers  of  the  Crown, 
they  experience  the  humiliation,  as  they  look  upon  it,  of 
being  shunted  for  ever.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  acquiescing 
patiently  in  the  inevitable.  Political  history  affords  many 
a  sad  instance  of  such  a  fate  being  regarded  as  one  of  the 
sorest  of  the  injustices  of  life. 

The  young  and  pushful  have  their  disappointments  and 
vexations  also.  Disraeli — according  to  Buckle,  his  biographer 
— having  completed  his  Administration  in  1874,  wrote  to 
a  lady  friend  :  "I  have  contrived  in  the  minor  and  working 
places  to  include  every  representative  man,  that  is  to  say, 
everyone  who  might  be  troublesome — all  those  sort  of 
men  who  would  have  made  a  Tory  cave."  He  adds  : 
"  There  are  some  terrible  disappointments,  but  I  have 
written  soothing  letters,  which,  on  the  whole,  have  not 
been  without  success."  But  not  altogether.  For  in  another 
letter,  written  in  187C,  Disraeli  says  that  at  a  dinner  party 
he  met  Lord  Randolph  Cliurchill — "  he  glaring  like  one 
possessed  of  a  devil,  and  quite  uncivil  when  I  addressed  him 


DISAPPOINTED   HOPES  165 

rather  cordially."  "  Why  ?  "  he  asks,  and  answering,  he 
says  it  was  perhaps  that  "  I  gave  the  lordship  of  the 
Treasury  to  Crichton  instead  of  himself." 

The  making  of  a  Government  may  be  completed  in  a 
week  if  all  goes  well.  Should  there  be  difficulties  in  recon- 
ciling the  claims  of  influential  rivals  for  particular  offices,  it 
may  extend  over  a  fortnight.  And  what  does  it  all  signify 
to  the  people  or  nation  ?  Charles  Dickens  was  disposed 
to  take  an  ironic  view  of  the  matter,  if  we  judge  from  some 
passages  in  Bleak  House.  "  The  limited  choice  of  the  Crown," 
he  writes,  "  in  the  formation  of  a  new  Ministry  would  lie 
between  Lord  Coodle  and  Sir  Thomas  Doodle,  supposing  it  to 
be  impossible  for  the  Duke  of  Foodie  to  act  with  Goodie, 
which  may  be  assumed  to  be  the  case,  in  consequence  of 
the  breach  arising  out  of  that  affair  with  Hoodie.  Then, 
giving  the  Home  Department  and  the  Leadership  of  the 
House  of  Commons  to  Joodle,  the  Exchequer  to  Koodle, 
the  Colonies  to  Loodle,  and  the  Foreign  Office  to  Moodle, 
what  are  you  to  do  with  Noodle  ?  You  can't  offer  the 
Presidenc)^  of  the  Council.  That  is  reserved  for  Poodle. 
You  can't  put  him  in  the  Woods  and  Forests.  That  is 
hardly  good  enough  for  Quoodle.  What  follows  ?  That 
the  country  is  shipwrecked,  lost,  and  gone  to  pieces  because 
you  can't  provide  for  Noodle  !  "  That,  however,  does  not 
quite  settle  the  matter.  May  it  not  be  said,  rather — Happy 
country  which  has  so  many  able  and  honest  men  striving 
for  the  opportunity  of  toiling  in  its  service  ! 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE  KING  AND  HIS  MINISTERS  AND  THE 

COUNTRY 


The  list  of  the  proposed  Administration  is  submitted  by 
the  Prime  Minister  to  the  King  for  approval.  Constitu- 
tionally, the  Sovereign  has  the  right  of  veto,  and  may 
require  any  of  the  Ministerial  appointments  to  be  cancelled. 
This  prerogative  is  now  rarely,  if  ever,  enforced.  So  far  as 
is  known,  Queen  Victoria  was  the  last  Sovereign  to  raise 
objections  to  certain  of  the  names  proposed  to  her.  When 
Gladstone  was  forming  his  Government  in  1880,  she  wished 
for  Lord  Hartington  at  the  War  Office,  in  place  of  Mr. 
Childers  ;  but  she  was  induced  to  give  way.  It  was  said 
in  1893,  when  Gladstone  was  again  forming  an  Administra- 
tion, that  Henry  Labouchere  was  not  included  solely  because 
Queen  Victoria  refused  her  sanction.  In  the  remoter  past 
there  are  instances  of  the  Sovereign  not  merely  vetoing  an 
appointment,  but  also  of  making  one.  But  when  George  IV 
attempted  to  appoint  Herries  in  1827  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  objection  was  successfully  maintained.  By 
modern  usage,  therefore,  the  position  may  be  said  to  be 
that  the  Sovereign  has  the  right  to  veto  an  appointment, 
but  not  to  make  one. 

The  Administration  having  been  completely  formed,  a 
day  is  appointed  by  the  King  for  taking  leave  of  the  outgoing 
Ministers,  and  receiving  the  incoming  Ministers,  at  meetings 
of  the  Privy  Council.  The  customary  procedure  is  for  the 
Clerk  of  the  Council  to  collect  all  the  seals  of  office  from 
the  various  Departments  beforehand  and  take  them  to 
Buckingham    Palace    for     the     ceremony.      Only    certain 


KING,   MINISTERS   AND   COUNTRY     167 

Ministers  hold  seals  as  insignia  of  office.  The  retiring  Prime 
Minister  has  no  seal  to  hand  over,  even  though  he  may 
also  hold,  as  he  usually  does,  the  office  of  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  ;  and  therefore  the  new  Prime  Minister  has  none 
to  receive.  The  Ministers  having  seals  of  office  are  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  the  Lord  Privy  Seal,  the  five  Secretaries 
of  State — Home  Department,  Foreign  Affairs,  Colonies, 
War,  and  India  (all  of  whom  are  constitutionally  of  co-equal 
and  co-ordinate  authority,  and  fully  authorized  to  transact, 
if  need  be,  each  other's  business) — the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  and 
the  Secretary  for  Scotland. 

The  seals  of  office  are  sets  of  three  seals,  each  made  of 
metal,  known  respectively  as  the  signet,  the  smaller  seal, 
and  the  cachet.  It  is  only  at  the  Foreign  Office  that  full 
use  is  made  of  the  three.  The  signet  is  affixed  to  instruments 
for  the  ratification  of  treaties.  The  smaller  seal  is  used  for 
Royal  Warrants  countersigned  by  the  Secretary.  The 
cachet  is  used  for  the  purpose  of  sealing  letters  sent  by  the 
King  to  Foreign  Sovereigns  on  matters  of  State.  Two 
seals  only  are  used  at  the  Colonial  Office,  the  signet  and 
the  smaller  seal ;  while  at  the  Home  Office  and  the  India 
Office  the  smaller  seal  is  used  for  all  purposes.  All  the 
seals  bear  the  Royal  Arms,  but  have  no  image  or  device 
appropriate  to  the  office  of  which  each  is  the  symbol.  Each 
Minister  receives  the  seals  of  his  office  enclosed  in  a  velvet 
case  from  the  King.  No  doubt  curiosity  impels  him  to 
examine  the  seals  on  that  great  day  when  he  enters  office, 
but  he  probably  never  sees  them  again  until  that  other 
notable  day  when  he  quits  office  by  handing  the  seals  back 
to  the  King. 


The  outgoing  Ministers  are  first  received  by  the  King 
in  the  Council  Chamber.  The  seals  being  sorted  out,  each 
Minister  takes  his  and  delivers  it  up  to  the  King,  thereby 
relinquishing  his  office.  Ministers  without  seals  resign 
office  by  formally  taking  leave  of  the  King.  Later  on,  the 
new  Ministers  arrive  at  the  Palace.  The  second  Council 
is   then   held.     The   first  thin"   done   is   to  administer  the 


168    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Privy  Councillor's  oath  to  such  Cabinet  Ministers  as  are 
not  yet  members  of  the  Privy  Council.  Each  swears  to 
be  "  a  true  and  faithful  servant  unto  the  King's  Majesty," 
and  to  reveal  it  to  his  Majesty  should  he  come  to  know  of 
"  any  manner  of  thing  to  be  attempted,  done  or  spoken, 
against  his  Person,  Honour,  Crown,  or  Dignity  Royal," 
and  then  proceeds  to  take  a  further  oath  upon  which  the 
secrecy  of  Cabinet  proceedings  rests.  The  passage  is  as 
follows  : 

You  shall,  in  all  things  to  be  moved,  treated  and  debated  in  Council, 
faithfully  and  truly  declare  your  Mind  and  Opinion  according  to 
your  Heart  and  Conscience  ;  and  shall  keep  secret  all  Matters  com- 
mitted and  revealed  unto  you,  or  that  shall  be  treated  of  secretly 
in  Council.  And  if  any  of  the  said  Treaties  or  Councils  shall  touch 
any  of  the  Counsellors,  you  shall  not  reveal  it  unto  him,  but  shall 
keep  the  same  imtil  such  time  as,  by  the  Consent  of  his  Majesty,  or 
of  the  Coiuicil,  Publication  shall  be  made  thereof. 

The  oath  winds  up,  "  So  help  you  God  and  the  Holy  contents 
of  this  book,"  though  by  an  Act  of  1889  affirmation  may 
be  substituted  for  the  oath. 

Disraeli,  who  knew  something  about  the  formation  of 
Ministries,  has  described  the  antithesis  of  the  Ministry  of 
All  the  Talents,  in  his  novel  Endymiorif  as  the  Ministry  of 
Untried  Men.  There  is  much  fact  and  some  fiction  in  the 
description.  The  Ministry  was  the  one  formed  by  Lord 
Derby  in  1852,  with  Disraeli  himself  in  it  as  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer.  Derby,  leader  of  the  Protectionists,  seemed 
to  have  a  difficult  task,  for,  barring  himself,  there  was 
no  one  to  choose  who  had  already  held  office.  The  task, 
Disraeli  tells  us,  was  accomplished  in  this  way  :  "  A  dozen 
men  without  the  slightest  experience  of  official  life  had  to  be 
sworn  in  as  Privy  Councillors  before  they  could  receive 
the  seals  and  insignia  of  their  intended  offices.  On  their 
knees,  according  to  official  custom,  a  dozen  men,  all  in  the 
act  of  genuflexion  at  the  same  moment,  and  headed,  too, 
by  one  of  the  most  powerful  peers  in  the  country,  the  Lord 
of  Alnwick  Castle  himself,  humbled  themselves  before  a 
female  Sovereign,  who  looked  serene  and  imperturbable 
before  a  spectacle  never  seen  before,  and  which  in  all  prob- 
ability will  never  be  seen  again.     One  of  the  band,  a  gentle- 


KING,   MINISTERS   AND   COUNTRY     169 

man  without  any  experience  whatever,  was  not  only  placed 
in  the  Cabinet,  but  was  absolutely  required  to  become  the 
Leader  of  the  House  of  Commons,  which  had  never  occurred 
before,  except  in  the  instance  of  Mr.  Pitt  in  1782."  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  confession,  it  is  well  to  recall,  appeared  after 
his  final  disappearance  from  the  political  scene. 

When  the  whole  Cabinet  has  thus  qualified  for  admission 
to  the  Privy  Council,  his  Majesty  declares  Lord  President 
of  the  Council  the  Minister  appointed  to  that  office,  who 
thereupon  takes  the  oath  to  "  well  and  truly  serve  his 
Majesty,"  and  kisses  his  Majesty's  hand.  The  other 
Ministers  take  a  similar  oath  in  due  order,  beginning  with 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  who  receives  the  Great  Seal,  followed 
by  the  Prime  Minister  and  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  ; 
and  those  who  are  entitled  to  seals  receive  them  from  the 
King,  while  the  others  kiss  his  Majesty's  hand  in  acceptance 
of  office.  Thus  does  the  Sovereign  ratify  the  selections  of 
the  Prime  Minister  for  the  various  posts  in  the  Adminis- 
tration. 


Lord  Campbell  relates  in  his  Diary  that  in  1859,  as  the 
members  of  the  Palmerston  Administration,  in  which  he 
held  the  office  of  Lord  Chancellor,  were  going  down  to 
Windsor  by  special  train,  they  passed  another  express 
returning  to  London  with  the  outgoing  Premier,  Lord 
Derby,  and  his  colleagues.  What  an  opening  for  aspiring 
young  statesmen  if  a  wicked  wag  of  a  railway  director  had 
ordered  the  two  trains  to  be  put  on  the  same  line,  was  the 
genial  comment  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  !  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  who  was  a  Minister  in  the  next  Derby  Adminis- 
tration, formed  in  July  1866,  also  gives  some  interesting 
glimpses  of  the  proceedings  associated  with  a  change  of 
Government.  He  writes  :  "  Queen's  carriages  met  us  at 
the  terminus  and  took  us  to  Windsor  Castle.  As  we  went 
upstairs  we  met  the  late  Ministers  coming  down,  and  shook 
hands  with  them.  While  we  were  waiting  in  the  long  room 
there  was  a  sharp  thunderstorm,  and  there  was  another 
while  we  were  at  luncheon,  after  taking  office.  The  slopes 
of  the  Terrace  looked  as  if  there  had  been  a  fall  of  snow. 


170     THE    PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Some  thought  this  a  bad  omen  for  us.  Disraeli  had  a  bad 
omen  of  his  own  as  we  came  down,  for,  thinking  there  was 
a  seat  at  the  end  of  the  saloon  carriage,  he  sat  down  there, 
and  found  himself  unexpectedly  on  the  floor."  This 
Administration  lasted  scarcely  two  years  ;  but,  despite  the 
ill-omened  accident  to  Disraeli,  it  was  for  that  statesman 
a  fortunate  Administration.  In  it  he  first  filled  the  great 
office  of  Prime  Minister,  to  which  he  succeeded  on  the 
resignation  of  Lord  Derby,  on  account  of  failing  health, 
early  in  1868. 

But  to  return  to  Windsor  Castle.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote 
goes  on  to  say  :  "  Lord  Derby  was  first  sent  for  by  the 
Queen,  and  had  a  short  audience.  We  were  then  all  taken 
along  the  corridor  to  the  door  of  a  small  room,  or,  rather, 
closet.  Lord  Derby,  Lord  Chelmsford,  and  Walpole  were 
called  in  ;  then  the  five  new  members  of  the  Privy  Council 
— Duke  of  Buckingham,  Carnarvon,  Cranborne,  Hardy,  and 
I — were  called  in  together,  and  knelt  before  the  Queen 
while  we  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  ;  then  we  kissed  hands, 
rose,  and  took  the  Privy  Councillor's  oath  standing.  The 
Queen  then  named  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  Lord  President 
of  the  Council,  and  we  all  retired.  The  Prince  of  Wales 
and  Duke  of  Edinburgh  were  in  the  room.  We  were  then 
called  in  one  by  one  and  kissed  hands  on  appointment  to 
office.  Lord  Derby  going  first,  then  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
the  Lord  President,  the  Lord  Privy  Seal,  the  Secretaries 
of  State  (all  together),  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
etc.  The  seals  were  delivered  to  all  these,  except  the 
Lord  President.  Lord  Derby  then  had  a  long  audience 
with  the  Queen,  while  we  went  to  luncheon.  Returned 
by  special  train  at  four  o'clock."  John  Bright  was  the 
only  Minister  who,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  relieved  of  the 
obligation  to  kneel  and  kiss  the  Sovereign's  hands  on  receiving 
the  seals  of  office.  When  he  went  to  Windsor  on  his  appoint- 
ment as  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  Queen  Victoria, 
a  great  admirer  of  his  speeches,  sent  Helps,  Clerk  to  the 
Privy  Council,  to  tell  Bright  she  would  dispense  with  the 
ceremony  if  that  was  more  agreeable  to  his  feelings  as  a 
Quaker,  and  he  availed  himself  of  this  "  considerate  per- 
mission," as  he  regarded  it. 


KING,   MINISTERS   AND   COUNTRY     171 

How  a  Minister  (Henry  Chaplin,  afterwards  Lord  Chaplin) 
held  the  seals  of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  for  the 
briefest  period  possible,  is  mentioned  in  the  diary  of  Lord 
Cranbrook,  when  he  enters  the  visit  to  Windsor  of  the 
Conservative  Ministry  of  1885  upon  taking  office.  "  There 
was  no  contretemps  but  the  careless  omission  of  the  kissing 
hands  by  Northcote,  which  was  soon  set  right ;  and  her 
Majesty  gave  Chaplin  the  War  Office  seals  by  mistake, 
easily  rectified.  Still,  there  should  be  some  distinctive 
mark  on  each  set." 


But  all  is  not  over  yet.  A  Member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  who  accepts  an  office  of  profit  under  the  Crown 
thereby  vacates  his  seat,  and  must  seek  re-election.  This 
applies  to  the  heads  of  all  the  great  Departments.  Minor 
Ministerial  posts,  such  as  the  Secretary  to  the  Treasury, 
the  Under-Secretaries  of  State,  the  Parliamentary  and 
Financial  Secretaries  of  various  Departments,  are  exempted 
from  this  parliamentary  law,  as  they  are  regarded  as  holding 
office  not  by  appointment  of  the  Crown,  but  by  appoint- 
ment of  the  Ministers  in  charge  of  the  different  offices.  The 
object  of  compelling  a  Minister  to  submit  his  acceptance 
of  office  to  the  judgment  of  his  constituents,  which  was 
first  established  by  an  Act  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne — 
Succession  to  the  Crown  Act,  1707 — was  to  restrain  the  corrupt 
influence  of  the  Cro^vn  over  Parliament  by  its  power  of 
conferring  place  on  servile  and  obsequious  Members.  The 
danger  the  statute  was  designed  to  avert  has,  happily,  past 
long  since  and  gone  for  ever.  The  Act  of  Anne,  however, 
continues  in  operation  despite  the  fact  that,  owing  to  the 
complete  revolution  which  has  since  been  effected  in  the 
Constitution,  it  is  entirely  remote  from  the  realities  of 
these  democratic  times.  The  only  modification  of  the 
original  Act  is  a  provision  in  the  Reform  Act  of  1867,  by 
which  a  Minister  who  is  transferred  to  another  office  "  in 
lieu  of  and  in  immediate  succession  the  one  to  the  other  " 
need  not  submit  himself  to  his  constituents.  A  constitu- 
tional difficulty  arose  on  the  taking  over  of  the  Chancellorship 
of  the  Exchequer  by  Gladstone  on  the  resignation  of  Lowe 


172    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

in  1873,  during  a  parliamentary  recess,  Gladstone  at  the 
time  being  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  and  Prime  Minister. 
Did  the  right  hon.  gentleman  come  under  the  provision  of 
the  Act  of  1867,  and  therefore  not  obliged  to  seek  re-elec- 
tion ?  The  law  officers  of  the  Crown — Coleridge,  Attorney- 
General,  and  Jessel,  Solicitor-General — came  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  seat  was  not  vacated  ;  and  their  opinion  was 
supported  by  Sir  Erskine  May,  Clerk  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  On  the  other  hand.  Lord  Chancellor  Selborne 
advanced  the  opposite  view,  holding  that,  as  Gladstone 
had  taken  the  office  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  not 
in  lieu  of  and  in  immediate  succession  to,  but  in  addition 
to,  the  office  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  he  must  sub- 
mit himself  to  his  constituents.  But  this  Gladstone  was 
reluctant  to  do,  as  his  seat  for  Greenwich  was  believed  to 
be  unsafe. 

Meanwhile,  the  Conservative  Opposition  sought  to  make 
the  situation  more  embarrassing  for  the  Government.  The 
Speaker  is  not  empowered  to  issue  his  warrant  for  a  new 
election  during  the  Recess  in  the  room  of  any  Member 
who  since  the  Prorogation  has  accepted  any  office  whereby 
he  has  vacated  his  seat,  unless  on  receipt  of  a  certificate 
from  two  Members  and  a  notification  from  the  INIember 
himself  of  the  fact  of  such  acceptance  of  office.  What  hap- 
pened in  this  particular  case  is  thus  described  by  John 
Morley  in  his  Life  of  Gladstone  :  "  The  unslumbering  instinct 
of  Party  had  quickly  got  upon  a  scent,  and  two  keen-nosed 
sleuth-hounds  of  the  Opposition,  four  or  five  weeks  after 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  taken  the  seals  of  the  Exchequer,  sent 
to  the  Speaker  a  certificate  in  the  usual  form,  stating  a 
vacancy  at  Greenwich,  and  requesting  him  to  issue  a  writ 
for  a  new  election.  The  Speaker  reminded  them,  in  reply, 
that  the  issue  of  writs  during  the  recess  in  cases  of  accept- 
ance of  office  required  notification  to  him  from  the  Member 
accepting,  and  he  had  received  no  such  notification."  In 
the  midst  of  the  controversy  Parliament  was  dissolved, 
and  with  it  the  difficulty. 

Governments  have  tried  to  repeal  the  statute  of  Queen 
Anne.  Arthur  Balfour,  who  thought  the  law  not  only 
antiquated,  but   inimical   to  good  government,  once,  when 


KING,   MINISTERS   AND   COUNTRY     173 

Prime  Minister,  brought  in  a  Bill  to  abolish  it.  "  I 
remember  in  my  early  days,"  said  he,  in  the  session  of  1905, 
"  the  Party  to  which  I  belong — it  was  in  1880 — derived 
infinite  enjoyment  from  the  satisfaction  of  turning  the 
late  Sir  William  Harcourt  out  of  his  seat  at  Oxford  on  his 
taking  office  as  Home  Secretary.  He  found  a  seat  after 
considerable  inconvenience  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  Government  ; 
and  in  my  opinion,  although  it  gave  us  great  satisfaction 
as  a  good  practical  joke,  it  was  a  severe  condemnation  of 
the  system  on  which  we  now  carry  on  business,  and  which 
no  practical  assembly  in  the  world  but  our  own  would 
tolerate  for  an  instant."  Balfour  failed,  however,  to  get 
the  House  of  Commons  to  agree  to  his  Bill.  I  have  heard 
several  debates  on  the  subject.  The  chief  argument  of 
the  Treasury  Bench  for  the  repeal  of  the  Act  was  that  by 
reason  of  it  no  Prime  Minister  has  ever  been  able  to  exercise 
a  really  free  choice  in  the  selection  of  his  colleagues  in  the 
Administration  ;  for  often  he  has  had  to  put  a  square  man 
into  a  round  hole,  because  the  round  man  that  would  fit 
the  round  hole  admirably  held  an  unsafe  seat,  and  therefore 
might  not  be  re-elected.  But  the  view  of  the  back  benches 
always  has  been  that  the  Act  supports  the  control  of  the 
House  over  the  Government,  and  gives  to  the  constituency 
the  opportunity  of  expressing  its  opinion  as  to  the  action 
of  its  representative  in  accepting  office  under  the  Crown. 
This  view  has  always  prevailed.  During  the  Great  War 
the  principle  was  twice  suspended  by  emergency  Acts. 
Members  who  accepted  office  in  the  two  Coalition  Govern- 
ments of  the  War — one  under  Asquith  in  May  and  June 
1915,  and  the  other  under  Lloyd  George  in  December  1916 
and  January  1917 — were  expressly  absolved  from  the  necessity 
of  seeking  re-election.  But  when  the  second  Coalition 
Government,  after  the  General  Election  of  December  1018, 
submitted  to  the  new  Parliament,  as  their  first  measure,  a 
Bill  to  repeal  the  statute  of  Queen  Anne,  feeling  against  it 
was  very  strong,  and  all  that  the  House  of  Commons  would 
assent  to  was  to  suspend  for  nine  months  the  obligation 
on  Members  to  go  to  their  constituencies  on  the  acceptance 
of  office. 


174    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 


With  the  re-election  of  the  Ministers  the  work  is  at  an 
end.  The  Administration  has  been  duly  constituted,  accord- 
ing to  long-established  custom.  However  smoothly  and 
rapidly  it  may  have  progressed,  there  are  certain  to  be  many 
sore  hearts — those  of  the  young  with  disappointed  hopes, 
and,  more  pathetic  still,  those  of  the  old,  who  are  deemed 
to  be  no  longer  fit  for  office.  But  what  of  the  outgoing 
Ministers  ?  They  no  longer  carry  out  of  office  the  little 
perquisites  which  were  permitted  to  some  of  their  predecessors. 
At  one  time  each  Secretary  of  State,  for  instance,  received 
on  his  appointment  a  silver  inkstand,  which  he  could  retain 
and  hand  down  as  a  keepsake  to  his  children  ;  but  Gladstone, 
when  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  abolished  this  custom, 
and  the  only  souvenir  of  office  an  outgoing  Minister  can 
take  with  him  now  is  the  red  dispatch  box  in  which  he  used 
to  carry  his  official  papers  to  the  House  of  Commons./  How 
do  they  take  their  dismissal  by  the  country  ?  "  There  are 
two  supreme  political  pleasures  in  life,"  says  Lord  Rosebery. 
"  One  is  ideal,  the  other  real.  The  ideal  is  when  a  man 
receives  the  seals  of  office  from  the  hands  of  his  Sovereign  ; 
the  real,  when  he  hands  them  back."  It  is  the  saying  of  a 
man  who  was  sick  and  tired  of  office.  But  I  beg  leave  to 
doubt  its  general  application. 


CHAPTER   XV 

OFFICE   AND   ITS    SPOILS 


Why  do  every  Government  cling  so  tenaciously  to  the 
responsibility  and  drudgery  of  office  ?  Wherefore  the 
feverish  eagerness  of  every  Opposition  to  take  the  burdens 
of  the  Empire  upon  their  shoulders  ?  Do  the  "  Spoils  of 
Office  "  account  for  the  great  trouble  there  always  is  in 
compelling  the  "  ins  "  to  get  out,  and  the  little  persuasion 
necessary  to  induce  the  "  outs  "  to  come  in  ?  Surely  here 
is  a  matter  of  high  public  interest,  which  is  well  worth 
investigation. 

The  salaries  of  most  of  the  chief  offices  of  the  Ministry 
were  settled  at  their  present  figures  by  an  arrangement 
made  so  long  ago  as  1831.  During  the  Administration  of 
Earl  Grey  (better  known  as  the  Reform  Ministry)  fixed 
incomes  of  £5,000  a  year  for  the  Secretaries  of  State,  and 
£2,000  a  year  for  the  Presidents  of  Boards  were  agreed  to 
on  the  recommendation  of  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  In  1850  the  emoluments  of  office  were  again 
reviewed  by  a  Select  Committee,  and  they  reported  in 
favour  of  the  retention,  practically,  of  the  1831  settlement. 
Included  in  this  Committee  of  fifteen  members  were  such 
rigid  economists  as  Molesworth,  Cobden,  Bright,  and 
Ricardo,  who  grudged  almost  every  penny  spent  for  State 
purposes.  "  For  these  offices,"  they  said  in  their  report, 
"  it  is  requisite  to  secure  the  services  of  men  who  combine 
the  highest  talents  with  the  greatest  experience  in  public 
affairs  ;  and  considering  the  rank  and  importance  of  the 
offices  and  the  labour  and  responsibility  incurred  by  those 
who  hold  them,  your  Committee  are  of  opinion  that  the 


176     THE   PAGEANT    OF   PARLIAMENT 

salaries  of  these  officers  were  settled  in  1831  at  the  lowest 
amount  consistent  with  the  requirements  of  the  public 
service." 

The  differences  in  the  emoluments  of  the  more  important 
offices  of  Cabinet  rank  have  been  a  source  of  embarrassment 
to  many  a  Prime  Minister  engaged  in  forming  a  Government. 
It  has  often  happened  that  a  man  offered  a  post  with  the 
lower  salary  has  considered  himself  slighted  by  his  political 
chief.  To  give  one  conspicuous  instance,  the  appointment 
of  Joseph  Chamberlain  to  the  Board  of  Trade  by  Gladstone 
in  1880  was  resented  by  the  Radicals,  if  not  by  Chamberlain 
himself,  as  a  belittling  of  his  services  and  abilities.  This 
feeling  did  not  tend  to  the  harmony  of  the  inner  councils 
of  the  Liberal  Government ;  and  yet  the  only  foundation 
for  it  was  that  the  Presidency  of  the  Board  of  Trade  had 
only  £2,000  a  year  as  compared  with  the  £5,000  of  a 
Secretary  of  State,  for  intrinsically  it  was  a  high  and 
important  office. 

In  1915  the  Cabinet  Ministers  of  the  first  War  Coalition 
Government,  under  Asquith,  decided  to  put  their  varying 
salaries,  big  and  little,  into  a  common  fund,  and  then  divide 
the  amount  equally  among  all.  The  "  pooling  "  was  entirely 
novel.  Its  purpose  was  to  mitigate  the  personal  hardship 
caused  to  certain  Ministers  who,  in  the  reshuffle  of  offices 
necessary  in  order  to  include  Unionists  in  the  Coalition 
Government,  had  their  emoluments  reduced,  or  else  to  afford 
a^salve  to  their  offended  dignity.  To  give  one  example, 
so  distinguished  a  Minister  as  Winston  Churchill  would 
otherwise  have  lost  £2,500  a  year  by  his  transfer  from  the 
office  of  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  paid  £4,500,  to  the 
office  of  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  paid  £2,000. 
But  the  general  effect  of  this  adoption  by  the  combined 
Liberals  and  Unionists  in  the  Cabinet  of  the  trade  union 
principle  of  paying  one  rate  of  wages,  was  to  more  than 
double  the  salaries  of  some  Ministers,  and  more  than 
half  the  salaries  of  others.  The  sum  that  each  received 
was  £2,446.  The  chief  sacrifices  were  made  by  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  whose  salary  is  £10,000,  and  the  Attorney- 
General,  whose  salary,  exclusive  of  fees,  is  £7,000.  The 
Prime  Minister's  salary  was  excluded  from  the  pool.     In 


OFFICE   AND   ITS   SPOILS  177 

the  House  of  Commons  the  arrangement  was  criticized  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  come  to  "  behind  the  back  of 
Parhament,"  and  altered  the  remuneration  of  Ministers 
which  ParHament  had  sanctioned.  Mr.  Asquith  strongly 
deprecated  the  discussion.  He  absolutely  declined  to  admit 
the  right  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  inquire  how  Ministers 
proposed  to  spend  their  salaries.  "  For  my  part,"  he  added, 
"  I  will  never  consent  to  hold  office  in  this  House  under 
the  Crown,  subject  to  the  condition  that  the  House  of 
Commons  or  any  other  body  in  this  country  is  entitled  to 
inquire  how  I  spend  the  money  which  I  receive.  If  my 
right  hon.  friends  and  colleagues — for  I  have  no  concern 
in  the  matter  myself — choose  by  domestic  arrangement 
among  themselves  to  determine  how  their  particular  salaries 
are  going  to  be  allocated,  I  submit  that  that  is  not  a  matter 
for  the  House  or  the  public."  The  payment  to  each 
Minister  of  the  salary  attached  by  Parliament  to  his  office 
was  resumed  under  the  second  Coalition  Government  formed 
by  Mr.  Lloyd  George. 


The  Prime  Minister,  head  of  the  Government  and  its 
maker,  receives  no  salary.  The  position  was  even  unknown 
to  the  Constitution  until  1905,  when  it  was  formally  recog- 
nized and  given  high  precedence  by  King  Edward  VII  on 
the  appointment  of  Sir  H.  Campbell-Bannerman  to  it  in 
succession  to  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour.  Some  office  of  State 
carrying  a  salary  is  accordingly  held  by  the  Prime  Minister, 
It  is  usually  that  of  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  or,  as  he 
is  fully  described,  "  First  Commissioner  for  executing  the 
Office  of  the  Lord  High  Treasurer  of  his  Majesty's  Exchequer," 
which  carries  a  salary  of  £5,000  a  year  and  that  famous 
official  residence.  No.  10  Downing  Street.  There  is  a 
country  house,  "  Chequers,"  in  Buckingham,  the  gift  in 
1920  of  Lord  Lee  of  Farnham.  The  post  is  a  sinecure  in 
the  departmental  sense,  no  duties  being  attached  to  it, 
which  leaves  the  holder  of  it  free  to  discharge  his  most 
responsible,  varied,  and  laborious  task  as  Prime  Minister. 
This  includes  the  general  supervision  of  every  Department 
of  the  State,  domestic,  colonial,  and  foreign,  and  the 
VOL.   I.  12 


178     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

direction  and  control  of  the  political  policy  of  the 
Government. 

Of  the  Prime  Ministers  who  have  sat  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, some  have  been  not  only  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury, 
but  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  also.  Pitt  was  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  as  well  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  in 
his  long  term  of  office  from  1783  to  1801.  Henry  Addington, 
who  succeeded  Pitt  as  Prime  Minister,  was  also  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  and  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  Pitt, 
on  returning  to  power  in  1804,  again  filled  the  two  offices  ; 
and  the  precedent  was  followed  by  Perceval  and  Canning 
when  each  was  Prime  Minister.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  his 
first  brief  three-months'  administration  of  1834-35,  was 
also  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  and  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer.  Gladstone,  both  in  his  first  Administration, 
1868-74,  and  in  his  second,  1880-85,  was  for  a  time  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  as  well  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury. 
The  Prime  Ministers,  from  Pitt  to  Canning,  who  were 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury, 
drew  the  salaries  of  both  offices,  then  amounting  to  £10,398  ; 
but  it  was  decided  by  the  Committee  of  1831  that  in  the 
event  of  the  two  positions  being  again  filled  by  one  Minister, 
half  the  salary  of  the  second  office  should  be  withheld. 
Peel  and  Gladstone,  accordingly,  were  paid  only  at  the 
rate  of  £7,500  a  year — the  full  salary  of  each  office  being 
fixed  at  £5,000  in  1831 — for  the  time  that  each  was  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury  and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 
Lord  Salisbury  made  a  new  departure  as  Prime  Minister 
by  acting  as  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  in  his 
three  Administrations,  1885,  1886,  and  1895,  at  a  salary 
of  £5,000.  The  labours  of  these  Prime  Ministers,  who,  in 
addition  to  supervising  everything,  administered  a  special 
Department,  and  particularly  a  Department  so  onerous 
as  that  of  the  Treasury  or  the  Foreign  Office,  must  indeed 
have  been  immense.  It  is  improbable,  now  that  the  labours 
and  responsibilities  of  office  are  ever  increasing,  that  this 
herculean  task  will  ever  be  undertaken  again.  But  it  shows 
that  our  Prime  Ministers  have  never  shirked  work  while  en- 
joying the  emoluments  of  office,  to  use  the  consecrated  phrase. 

The  chief  of  the  Treasury,  in  the  control  of  the  imposi- 


OFFICE   AND   ITS    SPOILS  179 

tion  of  taxes  and  the  expenditure  of  the  national  revenue, 
is  not  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  but  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer.  He  is  a  hard-worked  Minister 
and  not  often  is  his  task  of  making  ends  meet  brightened 
by  the  sunshine  of  popular  favour.  "  You  have  held  for 
a  long  time  the  most  unpopular  office  of  the  State," 
Gladstone,  as  Prime  Minister,  wrote  to  his  fallen  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  Robert  Lowe,  who  had  come  to  grief 
over  an  attempt  to  impose  a  tax  upon  matches  in  1873. 
"  No  man  can  do  his  duty  in  that  office  and  be  popular 
while  he  holds  it,"  he  went  on.  "  I  could  easily  name  the 
two  worst  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer  of  the  last  forty 
years ;  against  neither  of  them  did  I  ever  hear  a  word 
while  they  were  in  (I  might  almost  add,  nor  for  them  after 
they  were  out)  :  '  Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  revile 
you.'  You  have  fought  for  the  public  tooth  and  nail. 
You  have  been  under  a  storm  of  unpopularity  ;  but  not 
a  fiercer  one  than  I  had  to  stand  in  1860,  when  hardly  any- 
one dared  to  say  a  word  for  me  ;  but,  certainly,  it  was  one 
of  my  best  years  of  service,  even  though  bad  be  the  best." 
The  salary  attached  to  this  arduous  office  before  1831  was 
£5,398,  which  was  made  up  of  fees  from  different  sources. 
On  the  recommendation  of  the  Committee  of  1831  it  was 
reduced  to  a  fixed  sum  of  £5,000.  The  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  has  also  an  official  residence,  11  Downing  Street. 
The  Financial  Secretary  to  the  Treasury,  who  assists 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  the  administration  of 
his  department,  is  paid  £2,000  a  year.  There  are  also  three 
Junior  Lords  of  the  Treasury.  As  such  they  have  no  official 
duties  whatever.  What,  then,  do  they  do  for  their  salary 
of  £1,000  a  year  each  ?  According  to  an  amusing  definition 
of  their  duties  given  by  Canning,  they  are  always  to  be  at 
St.  Stephen's,  to  keep  a  House  and  to  cheer  the  Ministers. 
They  are,  in  fact,  the  assistant  Whips  of  the  Party  in  office. 
The  Chief  Whip  also  fills  a  sinecure  post  of  £2,000  a  year, 
which  used  to  be  styled  the  Patronage  Secretary  to  the 
Treasury,  and  has  of  late  years  been  called  the  Parliamentary 
Secretary  to  the  Treasury.^     The   Constitution  knows   not 

^  In  the  Coalition  Government  during  the  Great  War  there  were 
two  Chief  Whips,  one  Liberal,  the  other  Unionist,  each  styled  "  Joint 
Parliamentary  Secretary  to  the  Treasury,"  and  paid  £2,000. 


180    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

the  Whips.     They  are  provided  for  by  offices  to  which  there 
are  salaries,  but  no  duties  attached. 


3 

Very  important  Ministers  are  the  six  Secretaries  of  State. 
For  a  century  before  1782  there  were  two  joint  Secretaries 
of  State.  One  had  the  management  of  affairs  relating  to 
the  northern  States  of  Europe  ;  the  other  dealt  with  matters 
affecting  the  southern  countries  of  the  Continent,  and  Home 
affairs,  which  included  Ireland  and  the  Colonies.  In  1782 
there  was  a  redistribution  of  their  duties,  and  each  got  a 
distinctive  title.  The  former  was  called  "  Secretary  of 
State  for  Foreign  Affairs,"  ^  and  was  given  control  of  the 
relations  of  the  Kingdom  with  all  foreign  States  ;  and  the 
latter  was  styled  "  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Home  Depart- 
ment," w^hich  included  Great  Britain,  Ireland,  and  the 
Colonies.  There  was  also  at  this  time  a  Minister  called 
"  Secretary  at  War,"  responsible  for  the  land  forces  of  the 
Crown,  who,  by  a  singular  arrangement,  was  a  subordinate 
of  the  Home  Office.  In  1794  the  Secretary  of  State  for 
War  was  created  ;  and  in  1801  the  affairs  of  the  Colonies 
were  by  another  strange  arrangement  transferred  to  him 
from  the  Home  Department.  But  in  1854,  on  the  outbreak 
of  the  Crimean  War,  the  War  Minister  was  relieved  of  all 
Colonial  business,  which  was  vested  in  a  new  Secretary  of 
State  for  the  Colonies.  In  1858,  after  the  Indian  Mutiny, 
when  the  authority  and  power  of  the  East  India  Company 
were  taken  over  by  the  Imperial  Government,  the  Secretary 
of  State  for  India  was  first  appointed.  The  office  of  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  Air  which,  as  I  have  already  said,  was 
created  in  1917,  during  the  Great  War,  is  held  conjointly 
with  the  Secretaryship  for  War.  The  Air  Minister,  as 
President  of  the  Air  Council,  is  responsible  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Air  Force  and  the  defence  of  the  realm   by 

X,    ,      1  Sir  Edward  Grey,  speaking  at  a  public  meeting  in  1911,  when 

U''^he  was  Secretary  of  State  for   Foreign  Affairs,  humorously  objected 

/'^l  to  being  referred  to  as  the  "  Foreign  Secretary."     "  I  am  told,"  said 

y\  he,  "  it  gives  the  impression  that,  if  I  am  not  in  the  service  of  foreigners, 

I  am  at  least  an  alien." 


OFFICE  AND   ITS   SPOILS  181 

air.  The  salary  of  a  Secretary  of  State  is  £5,000  per  annum. 
Each  is  assisted  in  the  work  of  his  department  by  an  Under- 
Secretary  of  State,  who  is  paid  £1,500.  The  War  Office 
has  an  additional  parliamentary  official  known  as  the 
Financial  Secretary,  who  also  receives  £1,500.  In  1919  a 
new  Under-Secretaryship  was  attached  to  the  Foreign 
Office,  called  "  Secretary  of  the  Overseas  Trade  Depart- 
ment "  (it  has  relations  with  the  Board  of  Trade  also), 
with  a  salary  of  £1,500  a  year.  The  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty  is  paid  £4,500  a  year  for  directing  the  affairs  of 
the  Navy.  He,  like  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  has 
two  subordinates  in  Parliament — the  Parliamentary  and 
Financial  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty,  concerned  chiefly 
with  the  men  and  the  pay  and  conditions  of  service,  who 
gets  £2,000,  and  the  Civil  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  responsible 
for  harbour  works  and  docks,  who  gets  £1,000  a  year. 

The  Administration  includes  three  offices  of  high  standing, 
having  little  if  any  departmental  duties,  but  carrying 
salaries  of  £2,000  each,  which  are  usually  given  to  elderly 
men  of  long  service,  so  that  the  Cabinet  might  have  the 
advantage  of  their  ripe  experience  and  sage  councils. 
The  first  in  dignity  is  the  Lord  President  of  the  Council. 
He  presides  at  the  meetings  of  the  Privy  Council ;  but 
practically  the  only  occasion  on  which  all  its  members  are 
summoned  is  at  the  demise  of  the  Crown,  when  it  becomes 
the  duty  of  that  ancient  body  to  meet  for  the  purpose  of 
proclaiming  the  accession  of  the  new  Sovereign.  Formerly 
the  Lord  President  was  the  chairman  of  certain  committees 
of  the  Privy  Council,  which  no  longer  exist.  In  1837,  when 
Lord  John  Russell  took  the  first  step  to  establish  a  system 
of  national  education,  a  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council 
was  appointed  to  administer  the  moneys  which  Parliament 
voted  for  the  purpose,  and  at  its  deliberations  the  Lord 
President  presided.  In  1855  a  new  office  was  created — 
that  of  Vice-President  of  the  Council — which  in  time  became 
vested  with  the  control  of  education,  and  that,  too,  dis- 
appeared when  the  Board  of  Education,  with  a  Minister 
at  its  head,  was  created  in  1902.  In  like  manner,  the  duties 
of  the  Privy  Council  in  regard  to  trade  were  transferred  to 
the  Board  of  Trade,  and  its  duties  in  regard  to  public  health 


182    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

were  transferred  to  the  Local  Government  Board.  Again, 
the  Lord  President  supervised  the  exercise  of  the  statutory 
powers  of  the  Privy  Council  in  connection  with  the  preven- 
tion of  cattle  disease  ;  but  the  creation  of  a  Board  of  Agri- 
culture took  that  work  out  of  his  hands  and  left  him 
without  any  business,  save  that  of  the  nominal  supervision 
of  the  administrative  functions  of  the  Privy  Council.  The 
office  of  Lord  Privy  Seal  is  a  survival  from  the  historic  past 
when  the  Privy  Council  sought  to  restrain  executive  acts 
of  the  Crown  by  insisting  that  the  Lord  Chancellor  should 
not  affix  the  imprimatur  of  the  Great  Seal  to  any  grant, 
or  patent,  or  writ  which  the  Sovereign  desired  to  issue, 
without  their  authorization  in  the  form  of  a  warrant  under 
the  Privy  Seal.  In  these  days  of  Government  by  Parlia- 
ment, the  Lord  Privy  Seal  has  nothing  to  do.  Another 
office  of  dignity  rather  than  of  responsibility  is  that  of 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster.  His  duties  in 
relation  to  the  revenues  of  the  Duchy,  which  are  vested  in 
the  Sovereign  and  exempt  from  parliamentary  control  are 
purely  nominal,  so  that  he  is  free  to  come  to  the  assist- 
ance of  any  Minister  when  hard  pressed  in  Parliament,  or 
by  departmental  work  outside.  "  So  far  from  resembling 
an  epicurean  divinity,"  said  Lord  Dufferin  in  1871,  when 
some  noble  lords  called  his  position  a  sinecure,  "  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  seems  to  me  to  be  a  kind 
of  charwoman  and  maid-of-all-work  to  the  Government." 


One  of  the  busiest  of  Ministers  is  the  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trade.  The  work  of  the  department  is  most 
diversified.  It  covers  all  matters  affecting  trade  and  com- 
merce, industries  and  manufactures,  the  mercantile  marine, 
and  commercial  relations  with  foreign  countries.  The 
salary  of  the  President,  formerly  £2,000,  was  raised  to 
£5,000  in  1909.  Attached  to  the  Board  of  Trade  are  a 
Parliamentary  Secretary  and  a  Secretary  of  Mines  (created 
in  1920),  both  of  whom  are  paid  £1,500  a  year.  The  Board 
of  Trade  holds  a  titular  position  that  distinguishes  it  from 
the    other   Government    departments.     It    was    constituted 


OFFICE   AND   ITS    SPOILS  183 

in  1786  for  the  consideration  of  all  matters  relating  to 
trade  and  foreign  plantations.  As  a  board  it  is  a  relic  of 
olden  and  more  leisurely  times  when  much  of  the  work 
done  by  the  heads  of  the  departments  and  chief  clerks  was 
revised  by  commissioners  seated  round  a  board  or  table. 
Now,  however,  only  the  name  survives.  The  Board  of 
Trade  never  meets.  It  had,  as  ex-officio  members  such 
exalted  personages  as  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  also  one  whose  office  came  to  an  end  as  long  ago  as 
1800 — the  Speaker  of  the  Irish  Parliament.  When  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  was  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  he  was 
asked  whether  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  had  attended 
any  meetings  of  the  Board,  and  in  an  amusing  equivocation 
replied  that  his  Grace  "  had  not  missed  a  single  meeting 
to  which  he  had  been  summoned."  Sydney  Buxton,  another 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  was  asked  why  the  place 
of  the  Speaker  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  on  the  Board 
had  not  been  filled  up.  "  After  keeping  open  his  place  for 
more  than  a  century,"  he  replied,  "  I  should  be  sorry  now 
to  close  the  door  to  his  possible  return  to  the  Board."  He 
added,  amid  the  renewed  laughter  of  the  House,  "  that 
he  should  also  greatly  regret  losing  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  as  a  colleague." 

The  Minister  of  Health  has  charge  of  the  public  health 
and  controls  local  authorities.  The  Local  Government 
Board,  which  was  created  in  1871,  was  transformed  into 
the  Ministry  of  Health  in  1918.  The  Minister's  salary  is 
£5,000,  and  that  of  his  Parliamentary  Secretary  £2,000. 
In  1889  the  Board  of  Agriculture  was  established.  The 
powers  of  the  Board  of  Trade  relating  to  fisheries  were 
transferred  to  this  department  in  1903,  when  its  title  was 
changed  to  that  of  "  The  Board  of  Agriculture  and 
Fisheries."  In  1919  the  Board  became  a  Ministry.  It  is 
responsible  to  Parliament  for  the  Office  of  Woods  and  Forests 
which  administers  Crown  lands.  The  Minister  of  Agricul- 
ture is  paid  £2,000,  and  his  Parliamentary  Secretary  £1,200. 
In  1902  the  Board  of  Education  entered  upon  its  independent 
existence  among  the  Departments  of  the  State.  The  Presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Education  has  a  salary  of  £2,000,  and 


184    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

is  assisted  in  administering  the  system  of  national  education 
by  a  Parliamentary  Secretary,  who  gets  £1,200.  The  First 
Commissioner  of  Works,  head  of  the  Office  of  Works,  which 
performs  overseeing  duties  in  connection  with  Royal  palaces, 
State  buildings  and  Royal  parks,  has  £2,000  per  annum. 
The  Postmaster-General  receives  £500  a  year  more,  or 
£2,500,  in  consideration  of  his  more  onerous  duties  and 
responsibilities  in  the  control  of  the  postal  and  telegraph 
services,  and  there  is  an  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  who 
is  paid  £1,200. 

Two  new  Ministries  were  created  during  the  Great  War 
to  control  and  administer  affairs  which  arose  out  of  it — 
ways  and  communication,  by  the  Ministry  of  Transport ; 
and  the  allotment  and  payment  of  pensions  to  disabled  soldiers 
and  sailors,  and  to  the  relations  of  the  killed,  by  the  Ministry 
of  Pensions.^  The  Labour  Ministry,  for  the  enforcement 
of  legal  regulations  in  mines,  factories  and  workshops,  was 
brought  into  being  in  the  same  period.  These  four  Ministers 
are  paid  £2,000  each,  and  their  Parliamentary  Secretaries 
£1,200  each. 

The  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland  has  £4,425  a  year.  The 
salary  was  formerly  £5,500.  The  Committee  on  Official 
Salaries,  in  1850,  recommended  its  reduction  to  £3,000, 
but  it  was  fixed  at  £4,000,  with  an  extra  allowance  of  £425 
for  the  special  travelling  and  other  expenses  of  the  post. 
The  Chief  Secretary  has  also  an  official  residence  in  the 
Phoenix  Park,  Dublin.  He  is  paid  double  the  salary  of  an 
Under-Secretary  of  State — besides  his  extra  allowance — 
on  account  of  being  obliged  to  reside  part  of  the  year  in 
London  and  part  in  Dublin.  Formerly  the  Chief  Secretary 
was  subordinate  to  the  Home  Office,  but  he  has  been  for 
many  years  independent  of  that  department.  His  full 
title  is  "  Chief  Secretary  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland." 
The  relations  between  the  Lord-Lieutenant  and  his  Chief 
Secretary  have,  however,  become  inverted  in  recent  times. 
The  Chief  Secretary  is  now  solely  responsible  to  Parliament 
for   Irish   affairs  ;     and   the   Viceroyalty  has   become   more 

^  Three  other  Ministries  were  temporarily  created  for  the  purposes 
of  the  War — Munitions  and  Shipping  and  1^'ood.  They  were  brought 
to  an  end  in  1921. 


OFFICE  AND   ITS   SPOILS  185 

and  more  a  position  of  dignity  rather  than  of  power.  The 
most  highly  paid  office  in  the  Administration  is  that  of 
the  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  the  salary  being  £20,000  a 
year,  with  an  allowance  of  £3,000  for  outfit  on  appointment, 
and  an  official  residence  in  the  Phoenix  Park,  known  as  the 
Viceregal  Lodge,  as  well  as  apartments  in  Dublin  Castle. 
There  is  also  a  political  office  of  Vice-President  of  the  Irish 
Department  of  Agriculture,  created  in  1899,  to  which  a 
salary  of  £1,200  a  year  is  attached.  For  Scotland  there  is 
a  Secretary,  responsible,  like  the  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland, 
for  a  large  number  of  public  departments,  paid  £2,000  a 
year,  and  a  Parliamentary  Under-Secretary  for  Health,  paid 
£1,200  a  year. 

The  salary  attached  to  the  office  of  Lord  Chancellor  of 
England  is  £10,000— £4,000  as  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  £6,000  as  Judge.  The  Lord  Chancellor  of  Ireland 
is  paid  £6,000  a  year.  Indeed,  the  best  paid  offices  are  the 
legal.  The  Attorney-General  gets  £7,000,  and  the  Solicitor- 
General  £6,000  ;  and  both  receive,  in  addition,  high  fees 
for  cases  they  conduct  in  the  law  courts  on  behalf  of  the 
Crown.  During  1913-14,  the  financial  year  before  the 
Great  War,  the  Attorney-General  was  paid,  in  all,  £18,397  ; 
and  the  Solicitor-General,  £19,027.  The  fees  of  the  Attorney- 
General  in  the  year  after  the  War,  1918-19,  amounted  to 
£8,500,  and  those  of  the  Solicitor-General  to  £10,300.  They 
are  the  confidential  advisers  of  the  Cabinet  on  questions 
of  law.  Both  also  expound  and  defend  in  the  House  of 
Commons  the  legal  provisions  of  Government  measures 
and  proposals.  The  Attorney-General  for  Ireland,  as  chief 
law  officer  and  law  adviser  of  the  Crown  in  Ireland,  gets 
£5,000  a  year  and  fees  ;  and  the  Lord  Advocate  of  Scotland, 
who  holds  a  similar  position  in  regard  to  Scotland,  also  gets 
£5,000  a  year,  but  no  fees.  Ireland  and  Scotland  have 
each  a  Solicitor-General,  who  is  paid  £2,000. 

There  are  posts  in  the  Royal  Household  which  are 
political,  and  therefore,  .like  offices  in  the  Administration, 
are  vacated  at  a  change  of  Government.  The  best  paid 
of  these  Ministers  is  the  Master  of  the  Horse,  who  gets 
£2,500  a  year,  the  use  of  a  Royal  carriage  and  horses,  and 
the    services    of   four    of   the    King's    footmen.      He    has 


186     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

authority  over  all  matters  relating  to  the  royal  stables, 
the  King's  equerries,  pages,  grooms,  coachmen,  and  is 
responsible  for  arranging  the  details  of  Royal  processions, 
such  as  the  procession  from  Buckingham  Palace  to  West- 
minster when  the  King  goes  in  State  to  open  Parliament. 
The  Lord  Chamberlain,  who  has  the  regulation  of  Courts 
and  levees,  and  admission  to  them  ;  and  the  Lord  Steward, 
who  has  control  of  matters  *'  below  stairs,"  just  as  the 
Lord  Chamberlain  has  of  those  "  above  stairs,"  are  each 
paid  £2,000.  Then  there  are  the  Captain  of  the  Gentlemen- 
at-Arms,  and  the  Captain  of  the  Yeomen  of  the  Guard,  who 
each  draw  salaries  of  £1,000  a  year.  The  functions  of  these 
ancient  bodyguards  of  the  Sovereign  are  now  entirely  cere- 
monial. There  are  also  seven  Lords-in- Waiting — one  for 
every  day  in  the  week — who  are  paid  £600  a  year  each. 
Only  peers  are  eligible  for  all  the  foregoing  Household 
appointments.  There  are  three  other  posts,  carrying 
salaries  of  £700  each,  which  are  always  given  to  Members 
of  the  other  House — Comptroller  of  the  Household,  who 
conveys  messages  from  the  Commons  to  the  Sovereign, 
Treasurer  of  the  Household,  and  Vice-Chamberlain.  The 
duties  of  these  offices  are  practically  nominal,  and  the 
holders  of  them,  whether  Lords  or  Commons,  act  as  assistant 
Whips  in  their  respective  Houses,  or  do  all  sorts  of  odd  jobs 
for  the  Government.  Finally,  there  is  one  unpaid  Minister, 
and  he  is,  strange  to  say,  called  "  Paymaster-General." 
He  is  the  head  of  the  office  which  makes  the  payments 
required  by  the  different  departments  of  State  out  of  the 
sums  voted  for  the  purpose  by  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  placed  to  his  account  by  the  Treasury.  He  issues  the 
warrants  which  puts  thousands  of  pounds  into  the  pockets 
of  his  colleagues  in  the  Ministry,  but  not  a  brass  farthing 
into  his  own.  What  a  tantalizing  position  !  It  is  the  office 
that  is  the  attraction.  For  the  Paymaster-General,  though 
he  gets  no  salary,  is  proud  to  know  that  he  is  a  Member  of 
the  Government. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PENSIONS   FOR   MINISTERS 


It  appears  to  be  widely  supposed  that  Ministers  of  the  Crown  ^^ 
receive  pensions  on  retirement.  The  position  is  that  a  \ 
Minister  of  the  CroM^n  may  obtain  a  pension  if  he  has  held 
office  for  four  or  five  years.  But  he  is  not  entitled  to  it 
as  a  right  on  account  of  his  service.  He  must  apply  for  it 
to  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  make  a  declaration 
that  his  private  income  or  resources  are  inadequate  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  social  position  proper  to  one  who 
has  been  a  Minister  of  the  Crown.  Only  two  Members  of 
the  Government  receive  pensions  automatically  on  retiring 
from,  office,  the  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  whose  pension 
is  £5,000,  and  the  Lord  Chancelloi;^  of  Ireland,  whose  pension 
is  £4,000  a  year.  These  two  pensions  are  payable  as  a 
matter  of  course,  however  brief  may  have  been  the  period 
of  service.  Nor  is  there  any  limitation  to  the  number  of 
such  pensions  that  may  be  paid  at  the  same  time.  At  the 
close  of  the  World  War  in  1918  there  were  living  four 
ex-Lord  Chancellors  of  England — Lord  Halsbury,  Lord  Lore- 
burn,  Lord  Haldane,  and  Lord  Buckmaster — all  of  whom 
are  paid  the  £5,000  a  year,  and  a  fifth,  Lord  Finlay, 
who,  it  was  understood,  waived  his  right  to  the  retiring 
allowance. 

The  other  political  pensions  are,  as  I  have  said,  con- 
ditional. Johnson  felt  it  necessary  to  define  the  English  use 
of  the  word  "  pension  "  as  :  "  Pay  given  to  a  State  hire- 
ling for  treason  to  his  country."  Johnson,  however,  after- 
wards did  something  to  make  this  form  of  royal  bounty 
respectable  by  himself  accepting  £300  a  year  from  George  III, 

187 


188    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Undoubtedly  in  the  corrupt  stage  of  political  life  during 
the  eighteenth  century  there  were  numerous  pensions  and 
sinecure  offices  for  Ministers  who  were  needy,  or  simply 
greedy.  A  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  reported 
in  1802  that  for  twenty  years  previous  a  sum  of  £115,000 
had  been  annually  spent  on  pensions.  But  as  political 
morality  developed  with  the  progress  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  or  as  the  taxpayer  grew  impatient  of  his  increasing 
burdens,  this  system  of  growing  rich  or  repairing  broken 
fortunes  at  the  public  expense  gradually  came  to  an  end. 
The  granting  of  political  pensions  was  for  the  first  time 
regulated  by  an  Act  passed  by  the  Reform  Government  of 
Earl  Grey  in  1834— the  "  4  and  5  William  V,  c.  24,"  which 
is  described  as  an  Act,  "  to  alter,  amend,  and  consolidate 
the  laws  for  regulating  pensions,  compensations,  and  allow- 
ances to  be  made  to  persons  in  respect  of  their  having  held 
civil  offices  of  his  Majesty's  service." 

The  statute  which  now  governs  the  granting  of  pensions 
to  ex-Ministers  is  the  Political  Offices  Pension  Act,  1869. 
It  was  Gladstone,  then  in  the  first  year  of  office  as  Prime 
Minister,  who  brought  in  the  measure.  The  only  serious 
opposition  to  it  came  from  Henry  Fawcett  (afterwards 
Postmaster-General  in  Gladstone's  second  Administration), 
who  thought  that  no  Minister  should  be  entitled  to  a  political 
pension  unless  he  had  been  obliged  to  give  up  his  profession 
or  business  on  taking  office,  and  found  it  impossible  to 
resume  it  on  retirement.  Gladstone  explained  that  his 
scheme  was  no  more  than  a  necessary  amendment  of  the 
Act  of  1834,  which  authorized  pensions  varying  from  £800 
to  £2,000,  according  to  length  of  service  and  the  emoluments 
received,  and  after  a  short  discussion,  with  one  division — 
94  to  15 — the  Bill  was  passed. 

Three  classes  of  pensions  for  ex-Ministers  were  thus 
created : 

First-class  pensions  of  £2,000  for  four  years'  service 
in  an  office  of  not  less  than  £5,000  a  year. 

Second-class  pensions  of  £1,200  for  five  years' 
service  in  an  office  of  less  than  £5,000  a  year  and 
not  less  than  £2,000  a  year. 


PENSIONS   FOR   MINISTERS  189 

Third-class  pensions  of  £800  for  five  years'  service 
in  an  office  of  less  than  £2,000  and  more  than  £1,000 
a  year. 

The  period  of  service  may  be  continuous,  or  at  different 
times,  and  in  different  offices  of  the  same  class.  "  No  new 
pension  shall  be  granted  in  any  class  while  four  pensions 
in  that  class  are  subsisting,"  says  that  Act ;  "  nor  shall  more 
than  one  pension  be  granted  in  the  same  year." 

The  Political  Offices  Pensions  Act,  1869,  embodies  the 
following  section  of  the  Act  of  1834  : 

And  whereas  the  principle  of  the  regulations  for  granting  allow- 
ances of  this  nature  is  and  ought  to  be  founded  on  a  consideration 
not  only  of  the  services  performed  by  the  individual  to  the  State, 
but  of  the  inadequacy  of  his  private  fortune  to  maintain  his  station 
in  life  ;  be  it  therefore  enacted  that  from  and  after  the  passing  of  this 
Act,  whenever  any  person  shall  seek  to  obtain  one  of  the  pensions 
before  mentioned  his  application  for  that  purpose  shall  be  made  in 
writing  to  the  Commissioners  of  his  Majesty's  Treasury,  to  which  he 
shall  subscribe  his  name,  and  which  shall  contain  not  only  a  state- 
ment of  the  services  performed  by  him  and  the  grounds  on  which 
such  pension  is  claimed,  but  a  specific  declaration  that  the  amount 
of  his  income  from  other  sources  is  so  limited  as  to  bring  him  within 
the  intent  and  meaning  of  this  Act  and  the  principle  hereinabove 
declared,  and  without  such  declaration  no  pension  as  hereinbefore 
provided  or  authorized  shall  be  granted. 

2 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  Benjamin  Disraeli  was 
a  pensioner  under  the  Act  of  1834.  There  is  but  an  obscure 
and  passing  reference  to  it  in  Buckle's  Life  of  Lord  Beacons- 
field.  Lord  Derby  granted  him  a  first-class  pension  in 
June,  1859.  Disraeli  was  the  only  Prime  Minister  of  modern 
times  who  received  a  political  pension.  He  was  in  receipt  of 
it  when  he  died  as  Lord  Beaconsfield  in  April,  1881.  The 
pension  was,  of  course,  suspended  while  he  was  in  office 
as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  or  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury 
(including  his  two  terms  as  Prime  Minister),  but  the  total 
amount  drawn  by  him  in  pensions,  between  1859  and 
1881,  was  £26,456  6s.  7d.  Other  distinguished  pensioners 
under  the  Act  of  1834  were  Spencer  Walpole,  three  times  Home 


190     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Secretary,  who  from  May,  1867,  until  his  death  in  May,  1898, 
received  in  the  aggregate  a  sum  of  £62,032  19s.  4d. ;  Sir 
George  Grey,  four  times  Home  Secretary,  who  from  1857 
to  1882  drew  £39,070  2s.  6d. ;  and  Thomas  Milner  Gibson, 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  who  was  paid  £35,275  Is.  3d. 
between  1866  and  1884. 

The  first  beneficiary  under  the  Act  of  1869  was  Charles 
Pelham  Villiers,  the  associate  of  Cobden  and  Bright  in  the 
agitation  for  Free  Trade.  He  entered  Parliament  for  Wolver- 
hampton in  1835,  and  sat  for  the  same  constituency  until 
his  death  in  1898  at  the  great  age  of  ninety-six.  For  some 
years  at  the  end  of  his  long  career  as  a  member  of  Parliament 
he  was  Father  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Villiers  has  a 
place  among  the  few  public  men  who  have  had  statues 
erected  to  them  in  their  lifetime.  He  was  so  honoured  by 
Wolverhampton  ten  years  before  his  death.  Villiers  held 
office  in  two  Liberal  Administrations,  having  been  Judge 
Advocate-General  for  six  years,  and  for  the  same  period 
President  of  the  Poor  Law  Board,  an  office  long  since 
merged  in  the  Local  Government  Board,  now  the  Ministry 
of  Health. 

Villiers  was  awarded  a  second-class  pension  of  £1,200  by 
Gladstone  on  August  19,  1869,  a  few  days  after  the  Political 
Offices  Pensions  Act  became  law.  Although  this  amount 
was  reduced  to  £450  a  year  until  January  5,  1874,  as  Villiers 
had  also  a  pension  of  £750  from  the  Suitors'  Fee  Fund  of  the 
Court  of  Chancery — is  there  not  quite  a  touch  of  eighteenth- 
century  sinecure  in  this  ? — Villiers  received  altogether, 
under  the  Act  of  1869,  the  large  sum  of  £30,810  12s.  8d., 
and  was  drawing  the  pension  at  his  death  in  1898.  It  may 
be  said  that  no  man  better  earned  a  pension  than  Villiers. 
His  record  of  public  service  is  unparalleled  in  the  annals 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  But  on  the  proving  of  his  will 
it  was  found  that  he  had  been  a  very  wealthy  man.  He 
left,  in  fact,  a  fortune  of  £250,000. 

Gladstone,  subsequently  to  the  award  of  the  pension 
to  Villiers,  made  a  rule  by  which  every  cx-Minister  to  whom 
he,  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  granted  a  pension  was 
required  not  only  to  make  the  statutory  declaration  that 
he  was  unable  to  maintain  his  social  station,  but  was  also 


PENSIONS   FOR   MINISTERS  191 

obliged  to  engage  to  surrender  the  pension  should  he  come 
into  a  private  fortune,  or  obtain  a  highly  paid  appointment. 
Villiers,  it  seems,  had  an  accession  of  fortune,  but  evidently 
he  did  not  consider  that  the  new  engagement  applied  to 
him,  as  he  had  not  signed  it.  -j 

As  these  pensions  are  paid,  not  out  of  monies  voted  by 
Parliament,  but  directly  out  of  the  Consolidated  Fund, 
like  the  salaries  and  retiring  allowances  of  the  Judges,  they 
cannot  be  raised  as  a  subject  of  debate  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Attention,  however,  was  drawn  by  means  of 
questions  to  Villiers'  case,  and  subsequently  to  the  case  of 
Viscount  Cross,  who  died  in  March,  1914,  leaving  a  personal 
estate  of  the  value  of  £72,299,  after  having  drawn  a  second- 
class  pension  of  £2,000  for  over  twentj'^  years,  which  amounted 
in  the  aggregate  to  £40,760.  It  appeared  that  Lord  Cross, 
like  Villiers,  did  not  sign  the  declaration  to  surrender  his 
pension  in  the  event  of  an  improvement  in  his  pecuniary 
circumstances.  As  Lord  Beaconsfield  left  £84,000  at  his  death, 
his  case  differs  only  in  one  respect  from  those  of  Villiers 
and  Cross — he  had  been  twice  Prime  Minister  of  England. 


The  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  is  restricted  by  precedent 
to  granting  these  political  pensions  only  to  ex-Ministers  of 
his  own  Party.  In  1883  an  application  was  made  to  Glad- 
stone for  a  pension  for  a  Conservative  ex-Minister.  It 
was  refused  on  the  ground  "  that  no  political  pension  has 
been  granted  by  any  Minister  during  the  last  fifty  years, 
except  to  one  with  whom  he  stood  on  terms  of  general 
confidence  and  co-operation."  The  Prime  Minister  went 
on  to  say,  "  the  examination  of  private  circumstances,  such 
as  I  consider  the  Act  to  require,  is,  for  its  nature,  difficult 
and  invidious  ;  but  the  examination  of  competing  cases 
in  the  ex-official  corps  is  a  function  that  could  not  be  dis- 
charged with  the  necessary  combination  of  free  responsible 
action  and  of  exemption  from  offence  and  suspicion." 
Gladstone  therefore  declined  to  "  create  a  precedent  of 
deviation  from  a  course  undeviatingly  pursued  by  my 
predecessors  of  all  Parties."  Lord  Morley,  who  gives  this 
letter  in  his  Life  of  Gladstone,  observes  in  a  note :      "  Mr. 


192    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Gladstone  had  suffered  an  unpleasant  experience  in  another 
case  of  the  relations  brought  about  by  the  refusal  of  a  political 
pension,  after  inquiry  as  to  the  accuracy  of  the  necessary 
statement  as  to  the  applicant's  need  of  it." 

We  are  told  also  in  the  same  work  that  Gladstone, 
in  his  last  term  of  office,  came  to  hold  strongly  the  view 
that  these  political  pensions,  which  he  himself  created, 
should  be  abolished.  Lord  Morley  says  he  was  only  deterred 
from  trying  to  carry  out  his  views  by  the  reminder  from 
younger  Ministers,  not  themselves  applicants,  nor  ever 
likely  to  be,  that  it  would  hardly  be  a  gracious  thing  to  cut 
off  benefactions  at  a  time  when  the  bestowal  of  them  was 
passing  away  from  him,  though  he  had  used  them  freely 
while  they  were  within  his  power. 


y\  do  not  think  it  can  be  maintained  that  the  salaries 
of  banisters  are  more  than  fair  remuneration,  considering 
the  weighty  and  absorbing  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
the  offices,  and  also  the  difficulty  of  attaining  to  them  and 
I  the  uncertainty  of  their  tenure.^     It  is  far  from  being  an 

easy  matter  to  become  a  Minister  of  the  Crown.  The  posts 
are  few,  and  the  competition  among  the  many  aspirants 
to  them  is  very  keen»^  Most  Members  of  Parliament  never 
reach  it,  even  thougH  they  may  have  had  long  and  brilliant 
careers  in  public  life.  Fox,  who  was  forty  years  in  Parha- 
ment — having  entered  the  House  of  Commons  when  he 
was  nineteen,  and  retained  his  seat  until  his  death  at  the 
age  of  fifty-nine — held  Cabinet  office  for  only  about  eighteen 
months.  In  1782  he  was  Secretary  of  State  for  three  months 
in  the  Rockingham  Administration  ;  in  1783  he  filled  the 
same  office  for  nine  months  during  his  coalition  with  Lord 
North,  who  was  tlje  joint  Secretary  of  State,  with  the  Duke 

1  A  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  appointed  to  consider  the 
salaries  iof  Ministers,  owing  to  the  greatjjtise  in   the  cost  of  Uving, 
following   the   World,, War,  recommended,   in    1921,  that  the   salary 
^  of    the    Prime    Minister    be    raised    to    £8,000,    that   the    salary   of 

all  Ministers  of  Cabinet  "rank  be  £5,000  ;  that  the  salary  of  secon^j 
class  Ministers  be  £3,000,  third  class  Ministers,  £2,000,  and  that  UndCj. 
Secretaries  and  Parliamentary  Secretaries  be  paid  £1,500. 


PENSIONS   FOR   MINISTERS  193 

of  Portland,  as  Premier,  nominally  rather  than  effectually 
at  the  head  of  affairs.  Then  followed  twenty-three  years 
of  Opposition  during  the  long  and  brilliant  ascendancy 
of  William  Pitt.  In  January  1806  Pitt  died,  and  in  the 
Grenville  Government  which  followed  Fox  returned  to 
oflfiee  for  the  third  time  as  Secretary  of  State.  Once  more 
his  tenure  of  the  office  was  brief.  After  eight  months  it 
was  brought  to  an  end  by  his  premature  death  in  September, 
1806.  Fox  was  a  rake,  and,  being  a  younger  son,  naturally 
was  always  in  debt.  But  he  never  mourned  for  the 
spoils  of  office,  so  that  he  could  the  more  freely  indulge  in 
his  tastes  as  a  man  of  pleasure.  He  desired  office  that  he 
might  embody  his  political  ideas  in  Acts  of  Parliament. 
He  moved  his  famous  resolution  for  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade  in  June  1806  ;  his  health  had  broken  down,  and 
conscious  that  the  end  was  near  at  hand,  he  declared  that 
after  forty  years  of  public  life  he  should  retire,  feeling  that 
he  had  done  his  duty,  if  he  carried  his  motion.  The 
motion  was  carried  by  a  majority  of  99 — 114  voting  for  it, 
and  only  15  against.  It  was  practically  his  last  appear- 
ance in  the  House.  A  few  days  later  disease  compelled 
him  to  retire. 

On  the  other  hand,  William  Pitt,  as  a  Minister,  was  the 
spoiled  darling  of  fortune.  In  1782,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three,  he  was  appointed  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in 
the  Shelburne  Administration.  He  was  out  of  office  for 
the  nine  months  in  1783,  during  which  Fox  and  North  were 
in  power.  But  in  December  of  that  year,  on  the  dismissal 
of  the  Coalition  Government,  he  became  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Prime  Minister, 
and  he  was  not  yet  twenty-five.  He  held  these  offices  for 
the  unbroken  term  of  seventeen  years.  As  First  Lord  of 
the  Treasury  he  had  £5,000  a  year,  and  £5,398  a  year  as 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  He  had,  besides,  the  official 
residence  in  Do-wning  Street.  The  Clerkship  of  the  Pells, 
a  sinecure  office  worth  £3,000  a  year,  fell  vacant  on  Pitt's 
accession  to  power  ;  and  in  that  age  of  jobs  it  was  deemed 
a  remarkable  instance  of  disinterestedness  that,  instead  of 
taking  the  place  himself,  and  thus  acquiring  an  independence 
for  life,  he  gave  it  to  a  friend.  But  on  the  death  of  Lord 
VOL.   L  13 


194    THE   PAGEANT   OF  PARLIAMENT 

North  in  1792,  George  III  appointed  him  to  the  sinecure 
office  of  Lord  Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  with  a  salary  of 
£4  000 — reduced  by  payments  to  subordinates  to  £3,080 — and 
the  seaside  residence  of  Walmer  Castle.  For  eight  years, 
therefore,  he  had  £10,398  per  annum,  and  for  another  nine 
years,  £13,478  per  annum,  from  the  State.  Yet  on  his 
resignation  in  1801 — owing  to  the  refusal  of  the  King  to 
sanction  the  emancipation  of  the  Catholics,  without  which 
Pitt  regarded  the  Union  with  Ireland  which  he  had  just 
carried  as  incomplete — he  was  in  debt  to  the  amount  of 
£45,000.  As  his  official  salaries  were  stopped — though,  of 
course,  he  retained  the  £4,000  a  year  as  Lord  Warden — he 
was  in  danger  of  being  thrown  into  prison  as  a  debtor.  The 
merchants  of  London  offered  him  a  free  gift  of  £100,000, 
and  the  King  tendered  him  £30,000  from  his  Privy  Purse, 
so  that  he  might  extricate  himself  from  his  unpleasant  pre- 
dicament. He  declined  both  offers.  He,  however,  accepted 
from  fourteen  personal  friends  and  political  supporters 
£11,700  as  a  loan,  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  discharge 
the  most  pressing  of  his  creditors.  In  May  1804  he 
returned  to  power  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  and  Prime  Minister,  and  again  drew 
the  double  salaries  of  £10,398  until  he  died,  in  office,  on 
January  23,  1806.  His  debts  were  paid  by  Parliament. 
They  amounted  to  the  enormous  sum  of  £40,000,  exclusive 
of  the  £11,700  advanced  to  him  in  1801  by  his  friends,  who 
now  declined  repayment. 

What  was  the  explanation  of  Pitt's  indebtedness  ?  His 
private  life  seems  to  have  been  remarkably  pure.  His  one 
dissipation  was  an  extra  bottle  of  port.  He  was  a  bachelor. 
A  man  of  cold  and  shy  manners,  he  had  few  friends — his 
nose,  as  Romney  said,  was  turned  up  to  all  mankind — he 
mixed  little  in  society,  and  he  was  not  given  to  hospitality. 
Yet  with  £13,478  a  year,  and  town  and  seaside  houses, 
"  free  of  coal,  candles  and  taxes  " — to  quote  the  official 
phrase  of  the  time — in  each  of  which  he  maintained  but  a 
plain  and  inexpensive  establishment,  he  died  at  the  early 
age  of  forty-seven,  owing  £51,700.  The  only  explanation 
of  the  mystery  that  has  been  advanced  is  that,  so  absorbed 
■v^'^s  Pitt  in  public  life,  and  so  indifferent  was  he  to  monej^, 


PENSIONS   FOR   MINISTERS  195 

he  neglected  his  private  affairs  and  was  robbed  by  his  ser- 
vants. It  was  an  hereditary  weakness,  perhaps.  His  father, 
the  first  Earl  of  Chatham,  of  whose  private  hfe  Lord  Chester- 
field wrote,  "  It  was  stained  by  no  vices,  nor  sullied  by 
any  meanness,"  died  in  debt  to  the  extent  of  £20,000,  which 
Parliament  paid,  as  well  as  settling  an  annuity  of  £4,000  a 
year  on  his  successors  in  the  earldom. 

"  Dispensing  for  near  twenty  years  the  favours  of  the 
Crown,"  says  Canning  in  the  epitaph  he  wrote  of  William 
Pitt,  "  he  lived  without  ostentation,  and  he  died  poor." 
Further  than  this  it  is  now  impossible  to  carry  the  story 
of  the  material  result  to  himself  of  Pitt's  official  career. 
But  these  happy  words  are  of  general  application  as  a  tribute 
to  the  devotion,  honesty,  and  self-sacrifice  of  the  Ministers 
of  the  Crown.  There  is  no  instance  of  a  Prime  Minister 
who  grew  rich  in  office.  Spencer  Perceval,  who  was  assas- 
sinated in  the  Lobby  of  the  House  of  Commons,  on  May  11, 
1812,  left  his  family  so  ill-provided  for  that  Parliament  had 
to  come  to  their  assistance.  As  is  usual  in  such  cases.  Parlia- 
ment acted  handsomely.  It  made  a  grant  of  £50,000  to  the 
family,  and  voted  to  the  widow  a  pension  of  £2,000  a  year, 
which  on  her  death  was  to  be  continued  to  the  eldest  son 
and  increased  to  £3,000. 


When  Lord  John  Russell  was  Prime  Minister  and  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury  he  publicly  declared  that  no  man 
without  a  private  fortune  could  hope  to  fill  any  of  the  high 
offices  of  the  State  with  freedom  from  pecuniary  worries. 
"  For  my  part,"  he  said,  "  I  never  had  a  debt  in  my  life 
until  I  was  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury."  A  Minister  was 
obliged  largely  to  increase  his  personal  expenditure  in  order 
to  meet  the  social  calls  of  his  office.  He  must  live  in  a  better 
style  as  a  Member  of  the  Government  than  as  a  Member  of 
the  Opposition.  A  large  house,  servants,  and  carriages  were 
essential  to  the  adequate  fulfilling  of  his  social  obligations 
as  a  Minister.  "  If  I  recollect  aright,"  said  Lord  John 
Russell  to  the  Select  Committee  on  Official  Salaries  in  1850, 
"  when  Monsieur  de  Tercy  went  from  France  to  endeavour 
to  make  peace  with  the  Dutch  Government,  he  was  very 


196     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

much  struck,  on  calling  upon  the  Grand  Pensionary,  to  find 
the  door  opened  by  a  servant-maid,  and  he  thought  it 
showed  very  great  republican  sympathy  ;  and  no  doubt  it 
was  very  becoming.  But  I  think  that  if  Lord  Palmerston 
had  only  a  housemaid  to  open  the  door,  and  Foreign  Ministers 
called  there,  everybody  would  say  that  he  was  very  mean 
and  unfit  for  his  situation."  Palmerston  was,  at  the  time. 
Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  and,  being  a  wealthy 
man,  was  noted  for  his  lavish  hospitality.  In  fact,  the 
£5,000  a  year  which  the  head  of  the  Foreign  Office  is  paid 
does  not  always  cover  the  cost  of  living,  and  the  social 
entertainments  which  he  has  annually  to  give.  In  addition 
to  maintaining  a  position  of  great  dignity  in  a  becoming 
manner,  he  is  expected  regularly  to  entertain  at  his  own 
expense  the  members  of  the  various  foreign  diplomatic 
missions  in  London.  Lord  Rosebery  has  said  that  when 
he  was  Foreign  Secretary  in  1893  he  spent  half  of  his  year's 
salary  upon  two  receptions  at  the  Foreign  Office. 

Gladstone,  like  Lord  John  Russell,  lived  well  in  office 
and  simply  in  opposition.  On  his  appointment  as  Prime 
Minister  for  the  first  time  in  1868  he  took  a  house  in  that 
region  of  the  rich  and  fashionable,  Carlton  House  Terrace. 
After  his  defeat  in  the  General  Election  of  1875  he  wrote 
to  his  wife  saying  that  they  must  retrench  their  expenditure. 
"  The  truth  is,"  he  said,  "  that  innocently  and  from  special 
causes  we  have  on  the  whole  been  housed  better  than  accord- 
ing to  our  circumstances.  All  along  Carlton  House  Terrace, 
I  think,  you  would  not  find  anyone  with  less  than  £20,000 
a  year,  and  most  of  them  with  much  more."  His  official 
salary  was  but  £5,000,  and  when  it  was  stopped  he  retired 
to  Harley  street.  During  his  two  other  terms  of  office  as 
Prime  Minister  he  inhabited  the  official  house  in  Downing 
Street.  Gladstone  had  a  passion  for  public  economy.  He 
even  grudged  the  spending  of  a  small  sum  of  money  to  make 
bright  with  flowers  the  little  garden  at  the  back  of  No.  10 
Downing  Street,  so  eager  was  his  desire  to  limit  the  demands 
on  the  National  Exchequer,  But  he  always  considered 
that  he  had  well  earned  his  allowance  as  Minister.  Mr, 
John  Bright,  it  seems,  had  a  compunctious  visiting  of 
shame  every  time  that  the  quarterly  cheque  fox  his  official 


PENSIONS   FOR   MINISTERS  197 

salary  arrived,  and  once  he  disclosed  his  fccHngs  to 
Gladstone.  "  There  I  don't  agree  with  you,  Bright,"  said 
Gladstone.  "  I'd  rather  take  my  official  money  than  any- 
thing I  receive  from  land,  for  I  know  I  have  earned  every 
penny  of  it." 

The  emoluments  of  office  were  an  important  considera- 
tion to  some  of  the  greatest  men  in  political  history.  Burke, 
Pitt,  Sheridan,  Perceval  and  Canning  had  no  hereditary 
fortunes,  and  if  there  were  not  adequate  salaries  attached 
to  office  they  could  not  have  given  their  great  abilities  to 
the  services  of  the  country  in  government  and  adminis- 
tration. Edmund  Burke,  whose  movement  for  economic 
reform  in  the  conduct  of  State  affairs  led  to  the  abolition 
of  many  political  sinecures,  insisted,  nevertheless,  that 
reasonable  emoluments  should  be  paid  to  Ministers.  He 
said  : 

I  will  even  go  so  far  as  to  affirm  that  if  men  were  willing  to  serve 
in  such  situations  without  salary,  they  ought  not  to  be  permitted 
to  do  it.  Ordinary  service  must  be  secured  by  the  motives  to  ordinary 
integrity.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  State  which  lays  its 
foundation  in  rare  and  heroic  virtues  will  be  sure  to  have  its  super- 
structure in  the  basest  profligacy  and  corruption.  An  honourable 
and  fair  profit  is  the  best  security  against  avarice  and  rapacity,  as  in 
all  things  else  a  lawful  and  regulated  enjoyment  is  the  best  security 
against  debauchery  and  excess. 

Moreover,  if  the  salaries  of  office  were  meagre,  states- 
manship would  become  entirely  an  appendage  of  wealth. 
In  former  times  most  of  the  highest  offices  of  the  Govern- 
ment were  filled  by  territorial  magnates.  Whig  or  Tory — 
members  of  aristocratic  families  with  ample  private  means 
as  well  as  great  traditions  of  public  service.  To  these 
men,  possessed  of  personal  fortunes  of  £15,000,  £20,000 
or  £40,000  a  year,  the  salaries  of  office  may  have  been 
regarded  as  unconsidered  trifles.  And  yet,  strangely 
enough,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  rich  noblemen, 
their  relatives  and  dependants  were  at  the  head  of  affairs, 
the  political  seems  to  have  been  quite  a  lucrative  profession, 
for  a  Minister  often  held  his  majority  in  the  House  of 
Commons  together,  not  so  much  by  principles,  as  by  places 
and  pensions. 


198     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

But  the  old  custom  of  confining  the  highest  of  the  offices 
of  State  exclusively  to  men  of  hereditary  position  and 
wealth  and  leisure  came  to  an  end  by  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  tendency  to  open  the  arena  of 
statesmanship  to  all  members  of  the  Party  in  power  of 
proved  ability  and  distinction,  but  irrespective  of  birth  or 
rank  or  fortune,  was  strikingly  shown  in  the  Administration 
which  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman  formed  in  1905, 
when  John  Burns,  a  manual  worker  from  an  engineering 
shipyard,  was  made  President  of  the  Local  Government  Board 
and  a  Cabinet  Minister ;  and  as  this  tendency  is  bound  to 
become  wider  and  wider  still  as  time  progresses,  the  salaries  of 
Ministers  must  be  at  least  sufficient  to  provide  a  livelihood 
in  order  to  attract  to  the  service  of  the  State  men  well 
equipped  for  it  in  intellectual  ability,  and  experience  in 
affairs,  but  without  private  means. 

The  fact,  however,  remains  that  the  emoluments  of 
office  are  not  the  allurement  of  the  public  service,  and  they 
never  can  be  in  any  conceivable  circumstances  under  the 
Party  system,  and  the  frequent  changes  of  Government 
which  it  involves.  Those  who  make  politics  a  calling  are 
very  few  in  number.  As  a  rule,  men  do  not  enter  upon  a 
political  career  with  the  object  of  making  fortunes  as  states- 
men, or  even  of  securing  a  livelihood,  in  the  way  that  men 
study  medicine  to  become  doctors,  or  law  to  become  barristers. 
The  uncertainty  of  attaining  office  and,  in  the  event  of  success, 
the  precariousness  and  brevity  of  its  tenure  will  always 
make  statesmanship  the  most  unreliable  of  callings  in  the 
eyes  of  those  bent  on  having  a  good  balance  at  their  bankers. 
The  emoluments  of  office  are  really  not  so  much  salaries  as 
prizes. 

If  two  able  young  men  of  equal  mental  endowment  were 
to  set  out  on  the  same  day  to  make  their  way  in  the  world, 
one  going  into  commerce  or  the  prefessions,  and  the  other 
into  politics,  it  is  almost  a  certainty  that  when  the  time 
came  for  retirement  the  man  who  had  selected  a  professional 
or  business  avocation,  and  was  successful,  would  be  ten 
times  as  wealthy,  at  the  very  least,  as  the  man  who  gave 
himself  to  the  service  of  the  State,  even  though  he  had 
attained  to  the  most  renowned  and  exalted  office  of  Prime 


PENSIONS   FOR   MINISTERS  199 

Minister.  Members  of  Parliament  are,  as  a  rule,  engaged 
in  commercial  and  professional  occupations,  and  they  follow 
politics  as  a  concurrent  career.  The  few  who  show  a 
special  aptitude  for  leadership  and  office  ultimately  reach 
the  Treasury  Bench,  but  they  hold  on,  nevertheless,  to  the 
established  and  secure  positions  on  which  they  continue 
to  depend  for  their  bread-and-butter. 


6 

"  Spoils  of  Office  !  "  The  phrase  was  long  since  emptied 
entirely  of  its  eighteenth-century  suggestion  of  "  grab," 
and  remembering  the  public  rage  for  economy,  which  is 
likely  to  endure  for  ever  and  ever  on  account  of  national 
necessities,  it  may  be  accepted  that  "  spoils,"  in  the  sense  of 
pecuniary  rewards,  will  less  and  less  attach  to  service  of 
the  State.  The  responsibility  and  distinction  of  governing 
the  country  will,  happily,  always  be  attractive,  and  it  will 
always  bring  the  chance  of  gaining  the  greatest  of  most 
alluring  "  spoil  "  of  all — that  of  doing  something  to  maintain 
the  renown  of  the  country  for  honour  and  the  prosperity 
and  happiness  of  its  people. 

"  This  won't  do.  You  have  taken  the  Queen's  shilling." 
So  said  Disraeli  to  a  Member  of  his  Administration  who  was 
absent  without  due  cause  from  a  division  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  It  is  not  often  that  a  Minister  has  to  be  repri- 
manded by  his  chief  for  want  of  devotion  either  to  his  Party 
or  to  the  State.  Happy  country  !  Men  of  the  highest  class 
in  ability  and  integrity  are  ever  ready  to  take  its  burdens  upon 
their  shoulders.  It  does  not,  of  course,  follow  that  honest 
and  disinterested  men  are  always  the  best  of  politicians. 
Personal  integrity  and  intellectual  ability  are,  indeed, 
some  assurance  of  wisdom  in  the  guidance  of  the  State. 
But  they  are  not  an  infallible  guarantee.  If  they  were, 
there  would  never  be  a  need  for  a  change  of  Government. 
It  has  happened,  now  and  then,  that  the  principles  of  an 
Administration  were  large  and  lofty  enough  almost  to  bring 
the  nation  to  ruin.  But  this  much  is  true — that  if  Ministers 
cling  to  office  in  times  of  Party  stress  and  conflict,  it  is  not 
because  of  its  emoluments.     It  is,  in  the  main,  because  of 


200     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

a  real  concern  for  the  welfare  of  the  Commonwealth.  They 
are  convinced  that  the  administration  of  public  affairs  in 
the  light  of  their  Party  principles  is  essential  to  the  salva- 
tion of  the  country.  That  and,  fearing  they  would  be 
beaten  at  the  polls,  the  human  weakness,  "  to  keep  the  other 
fellows  out." 


CHAPTER   XVII 

THE   SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE 


The  Speech  from  the  Throne,  or,  as  it  is  popularly  called, 
"  The  King's  Speech,"  which  at  the  opening  of  every  session 
of  Parliament  is  read  to  Peers  and  Commons  assembled  in 
the  House  of  Lords  by  the  Sovereign  himself,  is  always 
awaited  with  considerable  interest,  and,  at  times  of  high 
political  excitement,  with  some  apprehension  not  unmingled 
with  vows  of  defiance.  For  in  it  the  legislative  programme 
of  the  Government  is  disclosed.  As  such  it  is  the  text  on 
which  the  Opposition  develop  their  attack. 

To  call  the  Speech  the  "  King's  Speech  "  is  a  polite  fiction — 
aye,  though,  should  his  Majesty  be  absent,  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
before  he  reads  it,  is  careful  to  say — following  an  ancient 
custom,  which  changes  in  the  Constitution  have  long  since 
deprived  of  its  old  significance — that  it  is  in  "  his  Majesty's 
own  words."  The  Sovereign  has  practically  little  or  no 
share  in  its  original  composition.  It  is  really  the  Speech 
of  the  Cabinet.  But  there  was  a  time  when  the  King  really 
spoke  in  the  Speech.  Parliament  could  not  then  assemble 
until  the  King  thought  fit  personally  to  summon  it.  When  it 
did  meet,  the  King  appointed  and  declared  the  business  in 
his  Speech,  and  Lords  and  Commons  were  expected  to  con- 
fine themselves  strictly  to  the  tasks  thus  prescribed.  This 
prerogative  is  still  theoretically  vested  in  the  Crown.  Parlia- 
ment can  be  summoned  only  by  the  Sovereign,  but  since 
the  Revolution  of  1688  the  Sovereign  in  summoning  it  has 
acted  on  the  advice  of  the  Ministers.  Parliament  cannot 
proceed  with  business  until  the  Speech  from  the  Throne 
has  been  delivered  ;    but  since  the  Revolution,  also,  neither 

201 


202     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

House — as    we   shall   see   later — is   bound   to   confine   itself 
to  the  "  causes  of  summons  "  set  forth  in  the  Speech. 

The  first  draft  of  the  Speech  is  usually  written  by  the 
Prime  Minister.  What  Bills  are  to  be  submitted  to  Parlia- 
ment is  first  decided  by  the  Cabinet,  but  the  general  contents 
of  the  Speech,  and  certainly  its  phraseology,  may  be  ascribed 
to  the  head  of  the  Government.  The  draft  is  submitted 
to  a  full  meeting  of  the  Cabinet,  where  it  is  discussed  point 
by  point  ;  and  probably  undergoes  some  alteration  in 
the  way  of  an  omission  here,  an  addition  there,  or  a  quali- 
fication of  some  particular  statement.  Then  a  copy  of  the 
Speech  is  sent  to  the  King  for  his  approval.  In  Selections 
from  the  Corresjoondence  of  Queen  Victoria  (published  1907) 
there  is  a  memorandum,  written  by  Prince  Albert  and  dated 
December  9,  1854,  of  an  interview  with  Lord  Aberdeen, 
then  Prime  Minister,  which  describes  a  "  scene "  in  the 
Cabinet  Council  over  the  preparation  of  the  Speech  that 
Queen  Victoria  was  to  read  at  the  opening  of  Parliament. 
Lord  John  Russell  had  to  withdraw  a  scheme  of  parliamentary 
reform  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Crimean  War,  and  now  wanted 
to  bring  it  on  again,  greatly  to  the  annoyance  of  Lord  Pal- 
merston,  for  the  War  was  not  yet  over.  Prince  Albert 
writes  : 

Later,  when  they  came  to  the  passage  about  Education,  Lord 
John  made  an  alteration  in  the  draft,  adding  something  about 
Btrengthening  the  institutions  of  the  coimtry.  Lord  Palmerston 
started  up  and  asked  :  "  Does  that  mean  Reform  ?  "  Lord  John 
answered  :  "  It  might  or  might  not."  "  Well,  then,"  said  Lord 
Palmerston,  with  a  heat  of  manner  which  struck  the  whole  Cabinet, 
and  was  hardly  justified  by  the  occasion,  "  I  wish  it  to  be  understood 
that  I  protest  against  any  direct  or  indirect  attempt  to  bring  forward 
the  Reform  question  again  !  "  Lord  John,  nettled,  muttered  to  him- 
self, but  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  everybody  :  "  Then  I  shall  bring 
forward  the  Reform  Bill  at  once." 

That  the  "  King's  Speech  "  is  the  Speech  of  the  Ministers 
has  been  admitted  by  reigning  Sovereigns  even  in  the 
eighteenth  century  when  constitutional  monarchy  was  not 
quite  firmly  established,  and,  at  any  rate,  when  Kings  were 
disposed  to  act  independently  of  their  advisers.  In  1756,  a 
too  enterprising  and  most  audacious  bookseller  was  prosecuted 


THE    SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE     203 

for  publishing  a  spurious  Speech  on  the  eve  of  the  opening 
of  Parliament.      "  I  hope,"    said  George   II,   "  the  fellow's 
punishment  will  be  light,  for  I  have  read  both  Speeches,  the 
real  and  the  false,  and,  so  far  as  I  understand  them,  I  like  the 
printer's  speech  better  than  my  own."    The  fellow  was  heavily 
fined  and  sent  to  Newgate  by  the  Lords  and  the  mock  Speech 
was  burnt  by  the  common  hangman  in  New  Palace  Yard  and 
at  the  Royal  Exchange  as  a  "  scandalous  libel  and  a  high 
contempt  of  his  Majesty."     But  the  King  had  the  fine  re- 
mitted and  the  term  of  imprisonment  curtailed.    "  Well,  Lord 
Chancellor,"  said  George  III  to  Lord  Eldon,  as  he  was  leaving 
the  House  of  Lords  after  opening  Parliament,  "  did  I  deliver 
the  Speech  well  ?  "   "  Very  well  indeed,  sir,"  was  the  reply. 
"  I'm   surprised   at  that,"  said   the   King,  "  for  there   was 
nothing  in  it."     The  voice  was  the  voice  of  the  King,  but 
the  words  were  the  words  of  his  Ministers.     Still,  the  King 
must  surely  be  allowed  some  latitude  of  opinion  in  regard 
to  the  King's  Speech  beyond  a  formal  expression  of  approval. 
The  truth  is  that  if  he  chooses  he  may  suggest  alterations, 
and  insist  upon  them,  no  doubt,  provided  modifications  of 
policy  are  not  implied.     He  probably  softens  an  expression 
now  and  then,  or  adds  a  gracious  sentence.     Did  not  George 
III  insert  in  his  first  Speech  the  famous  words,  "  Born  and 
bred  in  this  country,  I  glory  in  the  name  of  Briton  !  "     He 
was    the    first    English-born    King    since    the    Revolution. 
George  I  could  not  speak  a  word  of  English.     He  and  his 
Prime  Minister,  Walpole,  discussed  affairs  of  State  in  bad 
Latin.     George   II   publicly   proclaimed  himself  a  foreigner 
every  time  he  read  the  Speech  to  the  "  Gendlemen  of  de 
Houze  of  Gommons."     The  historic  phrase  of  George  III 
has  been  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  his  early  friend  and 
adviser,  the  Scottish  John  Stuart,  third  Earl  of  Bute,  which, 
it  was  said,  explained  the  degradation  of  the  proud  name 
of  "  Englishman  "  into  the  commonplace  "  Briton."     But 
the  King  always  insisted  that  the  inspiration  of  the  sentence, 
as  well  as  its  composition,  was  entirely  his  own.     A  story 
is  told  which   lends    confirmation  to  his    claim.     Notwith- 
standing  the   birth    and  training    in   which  he  gloried,  he 
wrote  English  ungrammatically  and  was  a  bad  speller  ;  and 
thus   "  Briton  "   in   the  renowned  sentence,  as  written   by 


204    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

the  royal  hand,  was  actually  misspelt  "  Britain."  "  What 
a  lustre  does  it  cast  upon  the  name  of  Briton  when  you, 
sir,  are  pleased  to  esteem  it  among  your  glories,"  said  the 
House  of  Lords  in  their  Address  thanking  the  King  for  his 
Speech. 


That  there  have  been  many  cases  of  dispute  between 
the  Sovereign  and  his  Ministers,  in  recent  years,  at  least, 
as  to  either  the  measures  set  out  in  the  Speech  or  the  phrase- 
ology of  its  sentences  is  very  unlikely.  Only  two  instances 
during  the  long  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  have  come  to 
light.  In  1859,  Austria,  struggling  to  maintain  her  position 
in  Italy,  was  at  war  with  Sardinia,  and  the  intervention  of 
France  on  the  side  of  Sardinia  was  regarded  in  some  circles 
in  this  country  as  a  characteristic  act  of  aggression  by  the 
Emperor,  Louis  Napoleon.  The  draft  of  the  proposed  Speech 
from  the  Throne  submitted  to  Queen  Victoria  contained 
the  following  passages  : 

Receiving  assurances  of  friendship  from  both  the  contending 
parties,  I  intend  to  maintain  a  strict  and  impartial  neutrahty,  and 
hope,  with  God's  assistance,  to  preserve  to  my  people  the  blessing  of 
continued  peace. 

I  have,  however,  deemed  it  necessary,  in  the  present  state  of 
Europe,  with  no  object  of  aggression,  but  for  the  security  of  my 
dominions,  and  for  the  honour  of  my  Crown,  to  increase  my  Naval 
Forces  to  an  amount  exceeding  that  which  has  been  sanctioned  by 
Parliament. 

The  Queen  sent  to  the  Premier,  Lord  Derby,  the  following ' 
criticism  : 

Buckingham  Palace, 

June  1,  1859. 
The  Queen  takes  objection  to  the  wording  of  the  two  paragraphs 
about  the  war  and  our  armaments.  As  it  stands,  it  conveys  the 
impression  of  a  determination  on  the  Queen's  part  of  maintaining 
a  neutrality — a  lout  prix — whatever  circumstances  may  arise  which 
would  do  harm  abroad,  and  be  inconvenient  at  home.  \Vliat  the 
Queen  may  express  is  her  wish  to  remain  neutral,  and  her  hope  that 
circumstances  may  allow  her  to  do  so.  The  paragraph  about  the 
Navy,  as  it  stands,  makes  our  position  still  more  humble,  as  it  con- 
tains a  public  apology  for  arming,  and  yet  betrays  fear  of  our  being 
attacked  by  France. 


THE   SPEECH   FROM    THE   THRONE     205 

The  Queen  then  suggested  two  amended  forms  for  these 
passages,  in  which  she  said  she  had  taken  pains  to  preserve 
Lord  Derby's  words,  as  far  as  was  possible,  with  an  avoidance 
of  the  objections  before  stated  : 

I  continue  to  receive,  at  the  same  time,  assurances  of  friendship 
from  both  contending  parties.  It  being  my  anxious  desire  to  preserve 
to  my  people  the  blessing  of  uninterrupted  peace,  I  trust  in  God's 
assistance  to  enable  me  to  maintain  a  strict  and  impartial  neutrality. 

Considering,  however,  the  present  state  of  Europe,  and  the  com- 
plications which  a  war,  carried  on  by  some  of  the  Great  Powers,  may 
produce,  I  have  deemed  it  necessary,  for  the  security  of  my  dominions 
and  the  honour  of  my  Crown,  to  increase  my  Naval  Forces  to  an 
amount  exceeding  that  which  has  been  sanctioned  by  Parliament. 

Lord  Derby,  in  his  reply,  contended  that  the  country 
was  unanimous  in  favour  of  a  strictly  neutral  policy.  Its 
sympathies  were  neither  with  France  nor  with  Austria, 
but,  were  it  not  for  the  intervention  of  France,  it  would 
generally  be  in  favour  of  Italy.  He  went  on  to  say  that 
the  Opposition  Press  were  insinuating  that  the  neutrality 
of  the  Government  covered  wishes  and  designs  in  favour 
of  Austria  ;  and  any  words  in  the  Speech  from  the  Throne 
which  should  imply  a  doubt  of  strict  impartiality  would 
certainly  provoke  a  hostile  amendment  in  the  interest  of 
Sardinia,  which  might  possibly  be  carried,  and  in  such 
circumstances  her  Majesty  would  be  placed  in  the  painful 
position  of  having  to  select  an  Administration  pledged  against 
the  interests  of  Austria  and  of  Germany.  He  thought  the 
Queen's  suggested  words  in  regard  to  the  Navy — "complica- 
tions which  a  war  carried  on  by  some  of  the  Great  Powers 
may  produce  " — would  inevitably  lead  to  a  demand  for  an 
explanation  of  the  "  complications  "  which  the  Government 
foresaw  as  likely  to  lead  to  war.  The  Prime  Minister  went 
on  to  say  : 

In  humbly  tendering  to  your  Majesty  his  most  earnest  advice  that 
your  Majesty  will  not  insist  on  the  proposed  Amendments  in  his  draft 
Speech  he  believes  that  he  may  assure  your  Majesty  that  he  is  express- 
ing the  unanimous  opinion  of  his  colleagues.  Of  their  sentiments 
your  Majesty  may  judge  by  the  fact  that  in  the  original  draft  he  had 
spoken  of  your  Majesty's  "  intention  "  to  preserve  peace  "  so  long  as 


206     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

it  might  be  possible"  ;  but  by  tmiversal  concurrence  these  latter  words 
were  struck  out ;  and  the  "  hope  "  was,  instead  of  them,  substituted 
for  the  "  intention." 

In  answer  to  this  letter,  Queen  Victoria  wrote  that  there 
was,  in  fact,  no  difference  between  her  and  Lord  Derby. 
She  had  suggested  the  verbal  amendments  merely  with  a 
view  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  difficulty  as  it  presented 
itself  to  her.  Whatever  decision  Lord  Derby  might  on 
further  reflection  come  to,  she  was  prepared  to  accept. 
In  the  Speech  read  by  the  Queen  from  the  Throne  the  two 
paragraphs  were  somewhat  modified  in  the  sense  her  Majesty 
desired. 

Five  years  later,  in  1864,  another  difference  arose  between 
Queen  Victoria  and  her  advisers  in  regard  to  statements 
in  the  Speech.  Denmark  and  Germany  were  at  war  over 
the  right  to  the  Duchies  of  Schleswig  and  Holstein — obtained 
finally  by  Germany — and  the  draft  of  the  Speech  submitted 
to  Queen  Victoria  contained  a  paragraph  plainl}^  if  not 
menacingly,  expressing  the  sympathy  of  England  with 
Denmark.  To  this  the  Queen  objected.  In  her  opinion 
the  best  policy  for  this  country  was  to  stand  neutral,  and 
though  the  stubborn  Palmerston,  who  was  then  Prime 
Minister,  was,  as  usual,  disposed  to  show  fight,  she  finally 
had  her  way.  The  Speech  as  read  in  the  House  of  Lords 
declared  that — 

Her  Majesty  has  been  unremitting  in  her  endeavours  to  bring 
about  a  peaceful  settlement  of  the  differences  which  on  this  matter 
have  arisen  between  Germany  and  Denmark,  and  to  ward  off  the 
dangers  which  might  follow  from  a  beginning  of  warfare  in  the  North 
of  Europe,  and  her  Majesty  will  continue  her  efforts  in  the  interest 
of  peace. 

It  is  not  sufficient  for  the  King  formally  to  express 
approval  of  the  draft  of  the  Speech  submitted  to  him  by  his 
advisers.  He  must  sign  the  Speech  in  the  presence  of  the 
Ministers,  thus  giving  them  a  guarantee  of  assurance  that 
he  will  deliver  that  particular  Speech,  and  no  other,  to  the 
two  Houses  of  Parliament.  Consequently,  at  a  meeting  of 
the  "  King  in  Council,"  or,  in  other  words,  the  Privy  Council, 
at   which,    however,    only   Cabinet   Ministers   are   present, 


THE   SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE     207 

the  King  endorses  the  Speech  with  his  signature.  When 
next  his  Majesty  sees  the  Speech,  a  printed  copy  of  it  is  pre- 
sented to  him  on  the  Throne  of  the  House  of  lyords  by  the 
kneeling  Lord  Chancellor  in  the  presence  of  the  Commons. 
The  Speech  is  written  in  a  prescribed  form.  Each  one 
bears  the  closest  resemblance  outwardly  to  its  predecessors. 
It  is  divided  into  three  sections.  The  first  section,  addressed 
generally  to  Members  of  both  Houses,  "  My  Lords  and 
Gentlemen,"  deals  exclusively  with  foreign  affairs  ;  then 
there  is  a  brief  paragraph  referring  to  the  Estimates,  which 
specially  concerns  "  Gentlemen  of  the  House  of  Commons," 
as  the  sole  custodians  and  guardians  of  the  public  purse  (or 
"  Members  of  the  House  of  Commons  "  as  the  phrase  became 
when  the  first  female  Member,  Lady  Astor,  was  elected  in 
1919) ;  and  the  third  section,  which  opens  again  with  "  My 
Lords  and  Gentlemen,"  contains  some  general  remarks 
on  home  affairs,  and  sets  out  the  legislative  programme  of 
the  Session.  "  I  pray,"  the  Speech  usually  concludes,  "  that 
Almighty  God  may  continue  to  guide  you  in  the  conduct 
of  your  deliberations,  and  bless  them  with  success." 


These  Speeches  possess  a  double  interest,  as  the  literary 
compositions  and  the  political  manifestoes  of  the  most 
eminent  statesmen  of  the  Nation.  To  me  it  has  been  a 
pleasant  occupation  dipping  into  them,  here  and  there,  in 
the  volumes  of  Hansard  and  extracting  a  few  notes  per- 
sonal to  the  Sovereign,  or  references  to  some  of  the 
great  political  issues  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  and  the  opening  decades  of  the  twentieth.  There 
is  a  popular  supposition  that  "  the  King's  Speeches  "  are^ 
the  worst  possible  models  of  "the  King's  English.",  The 
condemnation  is  too  sweeping.  Unquestionably  there  are 
Speeches  with  sentences  doubtful  in  grammar,  as  well  as 
feeble  and  pointless.  The  writing  of  most  of  them,  how- 
ever, is  pure  and  concise.  It  is  possible  to  trace  in  them  the 
characteristic  styles  and  different  moods  of  mind  of  the 
Prime  Ministers  by  whom  they  were  written.  Disraeli's 
Speeches  stand  out  as  the  most  ornate.     He  used  more 


208     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

rhetoric  than  other  Premiers  deemed  to  be  necessary  or 
desirable.  In  one  there  is  a  picture  of  "  the  elephants  of 
Asia  carrying  the  artillery  of  Europe  over  the  mountains 
of  Rasselas  "  ;  in  another  the  founding  of  British  Columbia 
calls  up  a  vision  of  her  Majesty's  dominions  in  North  America 
"  peopled  by  an  unbroken  chain,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific,  of  a  loyal  and  industrious  population  of  subjects 
of  the  British  Crown."  Nothing  could  be  more  effective 
from  an  elocutionary  point  of  view.  The  "  Speeches  " 
of  Lord  Melbourne  trembled  at  times  on  the  verge  of 
puerility.  Palmerston's  waved  the  Union  Jack  in  relation 
to  foreign  affairs,  and  his  off-hand  "  Ha,  ha !  "  was  heard 
in  references  to  things  domestic.  Gladstone  and  Salisbury 
drafted  "  Speeches  "  equally  noted  for  freshness  and  strength 
of  expression.  Lloyd  George  composed  the  longest  and  most 
comprehensive  and  possibly  the  most  historic  "  Speeches  " 
— those  that  immediately  followed  the  conclusion  of  the 
World  War.  They  were  obviously  addressed  not  so  much 
to  Lords  and  Commons  as  to  the  people  at  large. 

The  early  age  at  which  I  am  called  to  the  sovereignty  of  this  King- 
dom renders  it  a  more  imperative  duty  that  under  Divine  Providence 
I  should  place  my  reliance  upon  your  cordial  co-operation,  and  upon 
the  loyal  affection  of  all  my  people.  I  ascend  the  Throne  with  a  deep 
sense  of  the  responsibility  which  is  imposed  upon  me  ;  but  I  am 
supported  by  the  consciousness  of  my  own  right  intentions,  and  by 
my  dependence  upon  the  protection  of  Almighty  God. 

These  are  the  concluding  words  of  the  Speech  from  the 
Throne  read  by  Victoria,  the  girl-Queen,  to  her  first  Parlia- 
ment, on  November  20,  1837.  "  Never,"  wrote  Mrs.  Kemble, 
"  have  I  heard  any  spoken  words  more  musical  in  their 
gentle  distinctness  than  the  '  My  Lords  and  Gentlemen  ' 
which  broke  the  breathless  stillness  of  the  illustrious  assembly, 
whose  gaze  was  riveted  on  that  fair  flower  of  Royalty." 
It  was  a  new  Parliament,  fresh  from  the  country,  after  the 
General  Election  which,  as  the  law  then  required,  followed 
the  demise  of  the  Crown  owing  to  the  death  of  William  IV. 
The  scene  on  that  historic  occasion  in  the  old  House  of 
Lords  was  most  brilliant.  To  the  right  of  the  young  Queen 
stood  her  mother,  the  Duchess  of  Kent,     On  her  left  was 


THE    SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE     209 

Viscount  Melbourne,  the  Prime  Minister.  At  the  foot  of 
the  Throne  were  grouped  other  great  officers  of  State.  The 
benches  were  crowded  with  peers  in  their  robes — amongst 
whom  WelHngton,  Brougham,  Lyndhurst,  were  distinguished 
figures — and  with  peeresses  in  Court  plumes  and  diamonds. 
At  the  Bar  were  assembled  the  Commons,  Mr.  Speaker  Aber- 
cromby  at  their  head,  and  in  the  throng  might  be  seen  such 
eminent  statesmen  and  notabilities  as  Lord  John  Russell, 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  Lord  Palmerston,  Daniel  O'Connell,  Stanley 
(afterwards  Lord  Derby),  and  two  young  Members,  Glad- 
stone, who  already  had  four  years'  experience  of  Parliament, 
and  Disraeli,  just  returned  at  the  General  Election  for  Maid- 
stone, who  were  destined  to  become  the  two  greatest  political 
protagonists  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Writing  to  his 
sister  on  November  21,  1837,  Disraeli  thus  comically  de- 
scribes how  the  Commons  went  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
what  they  saw  there: 

The  rush  was  terrific  ;  Abercromby  himself  nearly  thrown  down 
and  trampled  upon,  and  his  maeebearer  banging  the  Members'  heads 
with  his  gorgeous  weapon  and  cracking  skulls  with  impunity.  I 
was  fortunate  enough  to  escape,  however,  and  also  to  ensure  an  entry. 
It  was  a  magnificent  spectacle.  The  Queen  looked  admirable  ;  no 
feathers,  but  a  diamond  tiara.  The  peers  in  robes,  the  peeresses  and 
the  sumptuous  groups  of  courtiers  rendered  the  affair  most  glittering 
and  imposing. 

What  a  contrast  between  this  splendid  and  joyful  cere- 
mony and  the  pathetic  scene  that  was  witnessed  in  the 
same  Chamber,  just  a  year  earlier,  when  Parliament  was 
opened  by  William  IV  for  the  last  time  !  The  aged  King, 
wrapped  in  his  ample  purple  robes,  and  his  grey  locks  sur- 
mounted by  the  Imperial  Crown,  stood  on  the  Throne 
struggling  with  dim  eyes  in  the  twilight  of  the  Chamber 
to  read  the  Speech  prepared  for  him  by  Lord  Melbourne. 
He  stammered  slowly,  and  almost  inaudibly,  through  the 
first  few  sentences,  pausing  now  and  then  over  a  difficult 
word,  and  querulously  appealing  to  the  Prime  Minister 
"  What  is  it,  Melbourne  ?  "  loudly  enough  to  be  heard  by 
the  Assembly.  At  last,  losing  all  patience,  he  angrily 
exclaimed,  in  the  full-blooded  language  of  the  period,  "  Damn 
it,  I  can't  see  !  "  Candles  were  instantly  brought  in  and 
VOL.   I.  14 


210     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

placed  beside  the  King.  "  My  Lords  and  Gentlemen," 
said  he,  "  I  have  hitherto  not  been  able,  for  want  of  light, 
to  read  this  Speech  in  a  way  its  importance  deserves  ;  but 
as  lights  are  now  brought  me,  I  will  read  it  again  from  the 
commencement,  and  in  a  way  which,  I  trust,  will  command 
your  attention."  Then  in  a  pitiful  effort  to  prove  to  Peers 
and  Commons  that  his  mental  and  physical  powers  were 
by  no  means  failing,  he  commenced  the  Speech  again  and 
read  it  through  in  a  fairly  clear  voice  and  with  some  emphasis. 
It  was  at  the  opening  of  the  third  session  of  the  first 
Parliament  of  Queen  Victoria,  on  January  16,  1840,  Lord 
Melbourne  being  still  Premier,  that  her  Majesty  read  from 
her  Speech  the  announcement  of  her  approaching  marriage 
to  Prince  Albert.  Writing  to  the  Prince  a  few  days  previously, 
she  said  the  reading  of  the  Speech  was  always  a  nervous 
proceeding,  and  it  would  be  made  an  "  awful  affair  "  by 
the  announcement  of  her  engagement.  "  I  have  never 
failed  yet,"  she  added,  "  and  this  is  the  sixth  time  that 
I  have  done  it,  and  yet  I  am  just  as  frightened  as  if  I  had 
never  done  it  before.  They  say  that  feeling  of  nervousness 
is  never  got  over,  and  that  William  Pitt  himself  never  got 
up  to  make  a  speech  without  thinking  he  should  fail.  But 
then  I  only  read  my  speech."  The  passage  in  the  Speech 
from  the  Throne  in  reference  to  her  marriage  is  as  follows  : 

My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, — Since  you  were  last  assembled  I  have 
declared  my  intention  of  allying  myself  in  marriage  with  Prince  Albert 
of  Saxe-Coburg  and  Gotha.  I  humbly  implore  that  the  Divine  blessing 
may  prosper  this  union,  and  render  it  conducive  to  the  interests  of 
my  people,  as  well  as  to  my  own  domestic  happiness  ;  and  it  will  be 
to  me  a  source  of  the  most  lively  satisfaction  to  find  the  resolution 
I  have  taken  approved  by  my  Parliament.  The  constant  proofs 
which  I  have  received  of  your  attachment  to  ray  person  and  family 
persuade  me  that  you  will  enable  mc  to  provide  for  such  an  estab- 
lishment as  may  appear  suitable  to  the  rank  of  the  Prince  and  the 
dignity  of  the  Crown. 

Mrs.  Simpson,  in  her  Many  Memories  of  Many  People^ 
writes  that  her  first  recollection  of  the  opening  of  Parliament 
was  on  this  auspicious  occasion.  "  I  sat  up  in  a  little  gallery 
over  the  Woolsack  between  the  beautiful  Lady  Dufferin 
and  Miss  Pitt,"  she  says.    "  I  remember  well  the  Queen's 


THE   SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE     211 

sweet  voice  and  that  the  paper  shook  in  her  hand.  By 
her  side  stood  Lord  Melbourne,  repeating  inaudibly — we 
could  see  his  lips  move — every  word  she  uttered." 

On  the  next  occasion  her  Majesty  opened  Parliament, 
February  3,  1842,  Sir  Robert  Peel  being  Prime  Minister, 
she  announced  in  the  Speech  another  joyful  event  in  her 
domestic  life,  the  birth  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  which  took 
place  on  November  9,  1841.     The  Speech  said  : 

My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, — I  cannot  meet  you  in  Parliament 
assembled  without  making  a  public  acknowledgment  of  my  gratitude 
to  Almighty  God  on  account  of  the  birth  of  the  Prince,  my  son — 
an  event  which  has  completed  the  measure  of  my  domestic  happiness, 
and  has  been  hailed  with  every  demonstration  of  affectionate  attach- 
ment to  my  person  and  government  by  my  faithful  and  loyal  people. 

The  Prince  Consort  died  on  December  14,  1861,  at  the 
early  age  of  forty-tAvo  years.  At  the  opening  by  Commission 
of  the  next  session  of  Parliament,  Lord  Palmerston  being 
Prime  Minister,  the  domestic  affliction  of  the  Sovereign  was 
thus  announced  in  "  the  Queen's  Speech  "  : 

My  Lords  and  Gentlemen, — We  are  commanded  by  her  Majesty 
to  assure  you  that  her  Majesty  is  persuaded  that  you  will  deeply 
participate  in  the  affliction  by  which  her  Majesty  has  been  overwhelmed 
by  the  calamitous,  untimely  and  irreparable  loss  of  her  beloved  Con- 
sort, who  has  been  her  comfort  and  support.  It  has  been,  however, 
soothing  to  her  Majesty,  while  suffering  most  acutely  under  this 
awful  dispensation  of  Providence,  to  receive  from  all  classes  of  her 
subjects  the  most  cordial  assurances  of  their  sympathy  with  her 
sorrow,  as  well  as  their  appreciation  of  the  noble  character  of  him, 
the  greatness  of  whose  loss  to  her  Majesty  and  to  the  nation  is  so 
justly  and  so  universally  felt  and  lamented. 


4 

Six  years  elapsed  before  Queen  Victoria  was  seen  again 
at  Westminster.  She  opened  the  Conservative  Parliament 
which  assembled  on  February  10,  1866.  The  ceremony, 
by  her  command,  was  plain  and  simple.  She  declined  to 
wear  the  purple  robe  of  State,  and  had  it  placed  over  the 
Chair  of  the  Throne.  Her  attire  consisted  of  a  black  dress 
and  a  widow's  white  cap,  the  only  touch  of  bright  colour 
being  the  blue  sash  of  the  Garter  across  her  breast.     For 


212     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

the  first  time  also  she  did  not  read  the  Speech  from  the 
Throne.  She  reverted  to  an  ancient  practice  by  deputing 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  Cranworth,  to  read  it.  The  Speech 
announced  the  termination  of  the  long  and  bloody  Civil 
War  in  America.  "  The  abolition  of  slavery,"  it  added, 
"  is  an  event  calling  forth  the  cordial  sympathies  and  con- 
gratulations of  this  country,  which  has  always  been  foremost 
in  showing  its  abhorrence  for  an  institution  repugnant  to 
every  feeling  of  justice  and  humanity." 

Queen  Victoria  next  opened  the  first  session  of  the 
Liberal  Parliament  on  February  11,  1869,  in  which  Gladstone 
for  the  first  time  was  Prime  Minister.  The  great  measure 
of  that  session  was  the  Bill  for  the  disestablishment  and 
disendowment  of  the  Church  in  Ireland.  "  The  ecclesiastical 
arrangements  of  Ireland,"  said  the  Queen's  Speech,  "  will 
be  brought  under  your  consideration  at  a  very  early  date." 
It  went  on  to  say  : 

I  am  persuaded  that  in  the  prosecution  of  the  work  you  will  bear 
careful  regard  to  every  legitimate  interest  which  it  may  involve, 
and  that  you  will  be  governed  by  the  constant  aim  to  promote  the 
welfare  of  religion  through  the  principles  of  equal  justice,  to  secure 
the  action  of  the  individual  feeling  and  opinion  of  Ireland  on  the 
side  of  loyalty  and  law,  to  efface  the  memory  of  former  contentions 
and  to  cherish  the  sympathies  of  an  affectionate  people. 

As  the  time  approached  for  the  meeting  of  Parliament 
in  the  following  year,  1870,  Gladstone  was  most  anxious 
that  it  should  be  opened  by  the  Queen.  The  chief  business 
was  to  be  a  Bill  dealing  with  the  Irish  land  question.  Glad- 
stone said  to  Lord  Granville :  "  It  would  be  almost  a  crime 
in  a  Minister  to  omit  anything  that  might  serve  to  mark 
and  bring  home  to  the  minds  of  men  the  gravity  of  the 
occasion."  "  Moreover,"  he  added,  "  I  am  persuaded  that 
the  Queen's  own  sympathies  would  be — not  as  last  year — 
in  the  same  current  as  ours."  This  shows  how  important 
it  was  for  the  success  of  the  Government's  legislative  pro- 
gramme that  Parliament  should,  in  the  opinion  of  Gladstone, 
be  opened  with  the  impressiveness  that  attends  the  cere- 
mony when  it  is  performed  by  the  Sovereign  in  person.  But 
her  Majesty  was  unable,  or  disinclined,  to  comply  with  his 
request.     The  opening  passage  of  the  Speech  from  the  Throne 


THE   SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE     213 

is  significant,  in  the  light  of  what  happened — as  we  now 
know — behind  the  scenes.  It  runs  :  "  We  have  it  in  com- 
mand from  her  Majesty  again  to  invite  you  to  resume  your 
arduous  duties,  and  to  express  the  regret  of  her  Majesty 
that  recent  indisposition  has  prevented  her  from  meeting 
you  in  person,  as  had  been  her  intention,  at  a  period  of 
remarkable  public  interest." 

The  last  time  that  Queen  Victoria  appeared  at  Westminster 
was  on  January  21,  1886,  at  the  assembling  of  a  new  Parlia- 
ment, with  the  Conservatives  in  office  but  not  in  power. 
"  The  Queen's  Speech  "  which  was  read  on  that  occasion 
was  perhaps — having  regard  to  what  occurred  subsequently 
in  Parliament — the  most  remarkable  of  Victoria's  long  reign. 
The  session  of  1886,  which  was  destined  to  be  made  historic 
by  Gladstone's  first  attempt  to  carry  Home  Rule,  was  opened 
with  a  Speech  from  the  Throne  strongly  reprobating  any 
disturbance  of  the  Legislative  Union. 

The  events  which  led  up  to  this  extraordinary  constitu- 
tional situation  may  be  briefly  related.  In  June  1885 
the  Gladstone  Administration,  defeated  on  an  amendment 
to  their  Budget  condemning  the  increases  proposed  in  the 
beer  and  spirit  duties,  resigned,  and  they  were  succeeded 
by  a  Conservative  Government,  with  Lord  Salisbury  as 
Prime  Minister  for  the  first  time.  There  was  a  General 
Election  in  November,  and  the  Liberals  came  back  from  the 
polls  in  triumph.  The  Government,  although  in  a  minority, 
did  not  resign.  They  decided  to  meet  Parliament,  not  to 
put  their  fortune  to  the  test,  for  they  knew  that  was  hopeless, 
but  in  order  to  have  a  Speech  from  the  Throne  in  which  there 
should  be  an  emphatic  declaration  against  any  attempt  to 
disturb  the  legislative  relations  between  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  and  the  session  was  opened  in  person  by  Queen 
Victoria  to  show  her  sympathy  with  the  maintenance  of  the 
Union.  The  Speech  from  the  Throne,  as  in  every  instance 
of  the  opening  of  Parliament  by  the  Queen  since  the  death 
of  the  Prince  Consort,  was  read  by  the  Lord  Chancellor. 
The  principal  passage,  relating  to  the  Irish  situation,  was 
as  follows  : 

I  have  seen  with  deep  sorrow  the  renewal,  since  I  last  addressed 
you,  of  the  attempt  to  excite  the  people  of  Ireland  to  hostility  against 


214    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

the  Legislative  Union  between  that  country  and  Great  Britain.  I 
am  resolutely  opposed  to  any  disturbance  of  that  fundamental  law, 
and  in  resisting  it  I  am  convinced  that  I  shall  be  supported  by  my 
Parliament  and  my  people. 

That  Gladstone  was  committed  to  Home  Rule  was  well 
known  at  the  time,  and  it  was  hoped  by  the  Conservatives  that 
this  declaration  would  prove  embarrassing  to  him.  Five 
days  later  the  Government  were  defeated  on  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Address  in  reply  to  the  Speech  in  favour  of  small 
allotments  for  agricultural  labourers.  Gladstone  once  again 
returned  to  office.  The  new  Liberal  Government  accepted 
the  Address  in  reply  to  the  Speech  from  the  Throne,  drawn 
up  by  their  Conservative  predecessors,  only  adding  to  it 
the  amendment  expressing  regret  that  there  was  no  promise 
in  the  Speech  of  legislation  to  enable  agricultural  labourers 
to  obtain  allotments  and  small  holdings.  At  that  time  the 
Address  was  an  echo  of  the  Speech  itself.  The  Sovereign 
was  thanked,  separately  and  specifically,  for  every  expression 
of  promise,  hope  or  regret  contained  in  the  Speech.  Here 
is  one  sentence  from  the  Address,  agreed  to  by  the  Liberal 
Government,  which,  in  view  of  the  introduction  of  the  Home 
Rule  Bill  by  Gladstone  as  Prime  Minister  a  few  months 
later,  is  one  of  the  curiosities  of  constitutional  history  : 

We  humbly  thank  your  Majesty  for  informing  us  that  your  Majesty 
has  seen  with  deep  sorrow  the  renewal,  since  your  Majesty  last 
addressed  us,  of  the  attempt  to  excite  the  people  of  Ireland  to  hostility 
against  the  Legislative  Union  between  that  country  and  Great  Britain  ; 
that  your  Majesty  is  resolutely  opposed  to  any  disturbance  of  that 
fundamental  law  ;  and  that  in  resisting  it  your  Majesty  is  convinced 
that  your  Majesty  will  be  heartily  supported  by  your  Parliament 
and  your  People. 

Sure  enough,  the  Home  Rule  Bill  brought  in  by  the  Prime 
Minister  in  June  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  thirty. 

King  Edward  VII  opened  his  first  Parliament  on  February 
14,  1901,  the  Unionists  being  in  office  and  Lord  Salisbury 
Prime  Minister.     His  Majesty  said  : 

I  address  you  for  the  first  time  at  a  moment  of  national  sorrow, 
when  the  whole  country  is  mourning  the  irreparable  loss  which  we 
have  so  recently  sustained,  and  which  has  fallen  with  peculiar  severity 


THE   SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE     215 

upon  myself.  My  beloved  Mother,  during  her  long  and  glorious  reign, 
has  set  an  example  before  the  world  of  what  a  monarch  should  be. 
It  is  my  earnest  desire  to  walk  in  her  footsteps. 

Of  the  Speeches  of  King  George  V,  one  of  the  most 
interesting  was  that  which  he  read  at  the  opening  of  ParHa- 
ment  in  1914 — six  months  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Great 
War — when  the  country  was  in  turmoil  over  the  question 
of  Home  Rule  and  seemed  to  be  drifting  into  Civil  War.  One 
of  its  passages  was  said  at  the  time  to  have  been  personally 
written  by  the  King,  with  a  view  to  mitigating  the  excesses 
of  Party  spirit.     It  runs  : 

I  regret  that  the  efforts  which  have  been  made  to  arrive  at  a  solu- 
tion by  agreement  of  the  problems  connected  with  the  Government 
of  Ireland  have,  so  far,  not  succeeded.  In  a  matter  in  which  the 
hopes  and  the  fears  of  so  many  of  my  subjects  are  keenly  concerned, 
and  which,  unless  handled  now  with  foresight,  judgment,  and  in  the 
spirit  of  mutual  concession,  threatens  grave  future  difficulties,  it  is 
My  most  earnest  wish  that  the  good  will  and  co-operation  of  men 
of  all  Parties  and  creeds  may  heal  dissension  and  lay  the  foundations 
of  a  lasting  settlement. 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  George  V  to  be  able  to  announce 
at  the  opening  of  the  new  Parliament  on  February  11,  1919, 
"  the  end  of  the  struggle  between  German  tyranny  and 
European  freedom  "  and  "  the  dawn  of  a  new  era."  The 
Speech  was  of  unprecedented  length,  as  well  as  of  historic 
importance.     One  of  its  most  striking  passages  was  this  : 

To  build  a  better  Britain  we  must  stop  at  no  sacrifice  of  interest 
or  prejudice  to  stamp  out  unmerited  poverty,  to  diminish  unemploy- 
ment and  mitigate  its  sufferings,  to  provide  decent  homes,  to  improve 
the  nation's  health,  and  to  raise  the  standard  of  well-being  throughout 
the  community. 

Never  before  was  the  question  of  the  condition  of  the 
people  enlarged  upon  so  emphatically  and  boldly  in  the 
Speech  from  the  Throne.     His  Majesty  added  the  warning  : 

We  shall  not  achieve  this  end  by  undue  tenderness  towards  acknow- 
ledged abuses,  and  it  must  necessarily  be  retarded  by  violence  and 
even  by  disturbance, 


216    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 


For  many  years  the  Commons  went  to  the  House  of 
Lords  in  a  way  that  was  most  unseemly  in  answer  to  the 
message  of  Black  Rod,  to  hear  the  Speech  from  the  Throne 
read  by  the  Sovereign.  So  great  was  the  rush  and  crush 
at  one  of  the  earher  openings  of  Parhament  by  Queen  Victoria, 
that  Joseph  Hume,  as  he  bitterly  complained  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  neither  saw  her  Majesty  nor  heard  her  voice, 
although  he  was  within  touch  of  the  Speaker  as  he  stood 
at  the  Bar.  "  I  was  crushed  into  a  corner,"  he  said,  "  my 
head  being  knocked  against  a  post,  and  I  might  have  been 
much  injured  if  a  stout  Member  had  not  come  to  my  assist- 
ance." Dickens,  who  was  present  at  the  ceremony  a  few 
years  later,  said  the  Speaker  was  like  a  schoolmaster  with 
a  mob  of  unmannerly  boys  at  his  heels.  "  He  is  propelled," 
the  novelist  wrote,  "  to  the  Bar  of  the  House  with  the  frantic 
fear  of  being  knocked  doAvn  and  trampled  upon  by  the  rush 
of  M.P.'s."  In  1851  the  Speaker  was  so  pushed  and  hustled 
that  his  wig  was  knocked  awry  and  his  robe  torn.  Frank 
Hugh  O'Donnell  relates  in  his  book  on  The  Irish  Parlia- 
mentary Party  how  at  one  opening  of  Parliament  in  the 
later  'seventies  he  saved  Disraeli  from  being  knocked  down 
by  squaring  his  shoulders  and  elbows  to  keep  off  the  pressure 
of  the  mob  of  M.P.'s  from  the  frail  person  of  the  Prime 
Minister.  Disraeli  sent  his  secretary,  Montagu  Cory,  to 
thank  O'Donnell.  The  last  time  such  a  scene  was  enacted 
was  in  1901,  at  the  first  opening  of  Parliament  by  King 
Edward.  Since  1902  the  Strangers'  Gallery  of  the  House  of 
Lords  has  been  set  apart  for  Members  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  they  are  allowed  access  to  it  before  the 
King  appears  in  the  Chamber  and  Black  Rod  is  sent 
to  command  the  attendance  of  the  Commons  at  the  Bar. 
It  is  a  spectacle  well  worth  seeing — the  King  crowned  and  in 
his  purple  robes  and  standing  on  the  Throne,  surrounded  by 
his  Ministers,  addressing  the  assembled  Lords  and  Commons. 
It  is  the  most  noble  and  impressive  sight  to  be  seen  at 
Westminster. 

The  Speech  is  read  in  both  Houses — in  the  Lords  by 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  in  the  Commons  by  the  Speaker — when 


THE   SPEECH   FROM   THE   THRONE     217 

they  reassemble  after  the  ceremony  of  the  opening  of  Parlia- 
ment by  the  King.  But  before  this  is  done  each  House  gives 
a  first  reading  to  a  Bill,  in  obedience  to  a  Standing  Order 
in  the  Lords,  and  in  the  Commons  by  ancient  custom.  The 
incident  escapes  the  attention  of  most  Lords  and  Commons, 
so  unostentatiously  is  it  done,  and  probably  its  constitutional 
significance  is  lost  to  most  of  those  who  may  chance  to  notice 
it.  In  the  Lords  the  Bill  is  called  "  Select  Vestries  Bill," 
and  in  the  Commons  the  "  Bill  for  the  more  effectual  Pre- 
venting of  Clandestine  Outlawries."  It  may  seem  a  matter 
of  form,  the  procedure  being  that  the  Clerk  in  each  House 
simply  reads  the  title  of  his  Bill,  but  it  is  meant  to  assert 
the  right  of  Parliament  to  act  as  it  thinks  fit,  without  reference 
to  any  outside  authority,  to  debate  matters  other  than  "  the 
causes  of  summons  "  set  forth  in  the  Speech  from  the  Throne. 
Neither  of  these  Bills  is  ever  heard  of  again  during  the 
session.  The  Outlawries  Bill,  which  does  service  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  has  been  preserved  in  the  drawers  of 
the  Table  since  the  opening  of  the  present  Chamber  in  1852. 
For  one  moment,  at  the  opening  of  each  session,  it  is  produced 
by  the  Clerk,  and  is  seen  no  more  for  another  twelve  months. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

DEBATE  ON  THE  ADDRESS  TO  THE  KING 


The  Commons  hear  the  Speech  from  the  Throne  twice — 
by  the  Sovereign  in  the  House  of  Lords  and  again  at  its 
subsequent  recital  in  their  own  Chamber  by  the  Speaker. 
Macaulay  states  in  his  History  that  the  first  Speech  of 
James  II  to  ParHament  in  1685 — notable  for  its  extra- 
ordinary admonition  to  the  Commons,  that  if  they  wished  to 
meet  frequently  they  must  treat  him  generously  in  the  matter 
of  supplies — was  greeted  with  loud  cheers  by  the  Tory 
Members  assembled  at  the  Bar  of  the  House  of  Lords. 
"  Such  acclamations  were  then  usual,"  says  the  historian. 
"  It  has  now  been  during  many  years  the  grave  and  decorous 
usage  of  Parliaments  to  hear  in  respectful  silence  all  expres- 
sions, acceptable  or  unacceptable,  which  are  uttered  from 
the  Throne."  The  recital  of  the  King's  Speech  by  Mr. 
Speaker  to  the  House  of  Commons  was  unmarked  by  any 
demonstration  of  Party  feeling  for  two  centuries  and  a 
quarter.  But  at  the  opening  of  the  last  session  of  the  Balfour 
Parliament,  in  February  1905,  there  was  a  breach  of  the 
traditional  decorum,  which,  as  a  change  in  parliamentary 
manners,  is  noteworthy  enough  to  be  placed  on  record./  The 
promise  in  the  Speech  of  economy,  "  so  far  as  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case  admitted,"  was  received  with  derisive 
laughter  on  the  Opposition  benches,  while  the  mention  of  the 
"  prospect  "  of  a  promised  Redistribution  Bill,  by  which 
Ireland  was  to  lose  twenty-two  seats,  provoked  loud  and 
angry  cries  of  defiance  from  the  Irish  Members.  Since  then 
the  reading  of  the  Speech  by  the  Speaker  in  the  Commons, 
whether  at  the  opening  of  a  new  Parliament  or  a  new  session, 

218 


DEBATE  ON  THE  ADDRESS    219 

is  usually  greeted  with  Ministerial  shouts  of  approbation 
or  Opposition  cries  of  dissent.  These  Party  cheers  constitute 
a  complete  acknowledgment  that  the  King's  Speech  is  the 
speech,  not  of  the  King,  but  of  his  Ministers. 


In  each  House  a  motion  for  an  Address  to  the  King  for 
his  "  most  gracious  Speech  "  is  submitted  on  behalf  of  the 
Government.  The  proposer  and  seconder  of  the  Address 
in  each  House  are  in  uniform  or  full  dress.  This  is  the  only 
occasion,  be  it  noted,  when  a  Member,  whether  of  the  Peerage 
or  of  the  Commons,  is  permitted  to  appear  in  Parliament 
otherwise  than  in  civilian  clothes,  a  rule  which,  probably 
in  the  history  of  Parliament,  was  suspended  only  during  the 
Great  War,  when  many  Members  wore  khaki.  The  uniforms 
of  the  Militia  or  Yeomanry  are  much  affected,  and,  failing 
the  commission  to  wear  them,  Court  costume  or  levee  dress 
is  the  rule.  Another  order,  which  prohibits  Members  of 
either  House  from  "  carrying  a  lethal  weapon,"  is  also  sus- 
pended for  the  occasion  in  favour  of  the  sword  of  the  soldier 
or  courtier.  There  is,  however,  one  instance  of  the  Address 
having  been  seconded  by  a  Member  who  wore  no  costume 
of  ceremony.  That  was  when  Charles  Fenwick,  the  Labour 
representative,  who  at  the  opening  of  the  first  session  of 
the  Liberal  Parliament  of  1893-95  discharged  that  function 
in  his  ordinary  everyday  clothes. 

In  March  1894  the  same  Liberal  Administration  being 
in  olTice — save  that  Lord  Rosebery  had  succeeded  Gladstone 
as  Premier — an  amendment  to  the  Address  moved  by 
LaBouchere,  Member  for  Northampton,  hostile  to  the 
House  -of  Lords,  was  carried  against  the  Government  by  the 
narrow  majority  of  two — 147  votes  to  145.  It  declared 
"  that  the  power  now  enjoyed  by  persons  not  elected  to 
Parliament  by  the  possessors  of  the  parliamentary  franchise 
to  prevent  Bills  being  submitted  to  your  Majesty  for  your 
Royal  approval  shall  cease,"  and  expressed  the  hope  that 
"  if  it  be  necessary  your  Majesty  will,  with  and  by  the  advice 
of  your  responsible  Ministers,  use  the  powers  vested  in  your 
Majesty  to  secure  the  passing  of  this  much-needed  reform." 


220     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

The  method  suggested  by  Labouchere  was  the  creation  of 
500  peers  who  would  be  willing  to  carry  through  the  House 
of  Lords  a  Bill  for  the  abolition  of  that  Chamber  and  them- 
selves. Sir  William  Harcourt,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
and  Leader  of  the  House  of  Commons,  declined  to  treat  the 
reverse  as  a  vote  of  censure,  or  to  add  the  amendment  to 
the  Address.  "  The  Address  in  answer  to  the  Speech  from 
the  Throne,"  said  he,  "  is  a  proceeding  for  which  her  Majesty's 
Government  make  themselves  responsible — responsible  as 
the  representatives  of  the  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons 
from  whom  that  Address  proceeds.  I  think  that  is  a  clear 
constitutional  principle  which  nobody  will  be  disposed  to 
dispute.  The  Government  could  not  present  to  the  Sovereign 
in  a  formal  manner  a  document  of  which  they  are  not  prepared 
to  accept  the  entire  and  immediate  responsibility."  He 
concluded  by  inviting  the  House  to  negative  the  amended 
Address,  and  to  adopt  a  new  Address,  which  simply  assured 
her  Majesty  "  that  the  measures  recommended  to  our  con- 
sideration shall  receive  our  most  careful  attention."  This 
motion  was  seconded  by  John  Morley. 

The  fact  that  neither  of  these  Ministers  wore  Court  dress 
or  uniform  led  that  humourist,  Colonel  Saunderson,  Member 
for  North  Armagh,  to  indulge  in  a  characteristic  joke.  Rising 
to  a  point  of  order,  he  asked  the  Speaker  whether  it  was  not 
contrary  to  the  immemorial  practice  of  the  House  for  the 
mover  of  the  Address  to  appear  without  the  uniform  befitting 
his  rank  ?  If,  he  continued,  the  Speaker  should  answer 
that  question  in  the  affirmative,  he  would  move  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  House  for  twenty  minutes,  so  as  to  give  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  an  opportunity  of  arraying 
himself  in  garments  suitable  to  the  occasion.  The  Speaker 
took  no  notice  of  the  question,  for,  of  course,  it  was  not 
seriously  intended.  What  Colonel  Saunderson  wanted  was 
a  laugh,  and  that  he  got  in  the  fullest  measure.  The  incident, 
unprecedented  in  parliamentary  history,  ended  with  the 
unanimous  adoption  of  the  new  Address. 

Another  strange  thing  happened  in  relation  to  the  Speech 
from  the  Throne  at  the  opening  of  a  new  session  on  February 
12,  1918.  I  was  in  the  Reporters'  Gallery  of  the  House 
of  Lords  when  the  Lord  Chancellor  read  the  Speech  at  the 


DEBATE  ON  THE  ADDRESS    221 

reassembling  of  the  House  after  the  opening  ceremony  by 
the  King.  As  he  was  reading  the  document,  Lord  Curzon, 
Leader  of  the  House,  handed  him  a  sHp  of  paper.  The 
Lord  Chancellor  then  said  that  the  following  passage  had 
been  accidentally  omitted  from  the  printed  copy  of  the 
King's  Speech,  which  was  supplied  to  him  and  distributed  to 
their  lordships  : 

I  have  summoned  representatives  of  my  Dominions  and  of  my 
Indian  Empire  to  a  further  session  of  the  Imperial  War  Cabinet  in 
order  that  I  may  again  receive  their  advice  on  questions  of  moment 
affecting  the  common  interests  of  the  Empire. 

It  had  also  been  omitted,  by  some  oversight,  from  the 
copy  of  the  Speech  given  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  to  the 
King  to  read  from  the  Throne.  Attention  was  called  to 
the  matter  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Member  for 
Carlisle,  Mr.  Denman,  pointed  out  that  this  paragraph  was 
to  be  found  in  the  Lords'  record  of  the  King's  Speech,  but 
not  in  the  record  of  the  King's  Speech  printed  in  the  Votes 
and  Proceedings  of  the  Commons.  He  thought  it  desirable 
that  the  records  of  both  Houses  as  to  what  was  actually 
contained  in  the  King's  Speech  should  be  identical.  The 
Speaker,  Mr.  Lowther,  said  the  hon.  Member  seemed  to 
want  him  to  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  King  words  which 
his  Majesty  did  not  use — a  remark  that  was  received  with 
laughter.  He  explained  that  the  copy  of  the  Speech  which 
he  had  read  to  the  Commons  had  been  supplied  to  him  by 
the  Home  Secretary,  and  he  assumed  it  to  be  accurate. 
It  was  brought  to  his  notice  afterwards  that  the  copy  of  the 
Speech  which  he  had  read  did  not  correspond  with  the  copy 
which  had  been  read  by  the  King,  and  therefore  he  caused 
the  official  record  to  be  amended  so  as  to  correspond  exactly 
with  the  actual  Speech  which  his  Majesty  had  read  from 
the  Throne. 


It  is  a  compliment  to  be  invited  to  move  or  second  the 
motion  for  the  Address  in  reply  to  the  Speech.  Young 
Ministeriahsts  of  promise  in  the  House  of  Commons  are  gene- 
rally selected  for  the  distinction.     As  a  rule,  one  represents 


222     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

an  urban  and  the  other  a  rural  constituency  ;  one  is  associated 
with  agriculture  and  the  other  with  trade.  The  debate 
which  follows  is  always  of  interest,  and  usually  is  a  good 
test  of  the  debating  quality  of  the  House.  The  Opposition 
give  battle  to  the  Ministerialists.  The  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment is  attacked  along  the  whole  line  in  a  series  of  amend- 
ments to  the  Address. 

In  former  times  the  Address — as  I  have  already  men- 
tioned— used  to  be  an  elaborate  answer  to  the  Speech, 
paragraph  by  paragraph,  expressing  approval  of  its  every 
declaration,  and  thanking  the  Sovereign  in  each  instance  for 
the  great  condescension  and  wisdom  of  his  words.  This 
practice  was  abandoned  owing  to  the  waste  of  time  it  involved, 
and  for  many  years  the  Address  has  assumed  a  more  simple 
and  rational  form.  From  the  Commons  it  consists  of  a 
simple  resolution  in  the  following  terms  : 

That  a  humble  Address  be  presented  to  his  Majesty,  as  foUoweth  : 
Most  Gracious  Sovereign, — We,  your  Majesty's  most  dutiful  and 
loyal  subjects,  the  Commons  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  in  Parliament  assembled,  beg  leave  to  thank  your  Majesty 
for  the  most  gracious  Speech  which  your  Majesty  has  addressed  to 
both  Houses  of  Parliament. 

The  Addresses  from  the  Lords  and  Commons,  in  reply  to 
the  Speech,  were  at  one  time  presented  to  the  Sovereign  at 
Buckingham  Palace,  nominally  by  "  the  whole  House  "  in  each 
case,  but  really  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  for  the  Lords  and  by 
the  Speaker  for  the  Commons,  each  being  attended  by  the  pro- 
poser and  seconder  and  a  few  of  the  Ministers  in  either  House. 
All  the  Members  of  each  House,  however,  were  supposed  to 
have  the  privilege  of  "  free  access  "  to  the  Throne  on  these 
occasions  ;  and,  moreover,  they  might,  if  they  so  pleased, 
enter  the  presence  of  the  Sovereign  in  ordinary  attire,  instead 
of  in  the  regulation  gold-braided  coat  and  knee-breeches. 
The  ceremony  of  presenting  the  Address  by  the  whole  House 
is  now  obsolete.  The  course  which  has  been  followed  in 
recent  years  is  that  the  Addresses  are  presented  by  two 
Ministers  who  are  members  of  the  Royal  Household.  These 
Ministers  also  bring  back  to  both  Houses  the  King's  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  Addresses. 


DEBATE  ON  THE  ADDRESS    223 

A  message  from  the  Crown,  or,  as  it  is  styled  officially, 
*'  a  message  under  the  Royal  sign-manual,"  is  presented  to 
both  Houses  with  some  ceremony.  In  the  Lords,  the  Lord 
Steward  of  the  Household,  wearing  his  official  uniform,  holding 
a  white  wand  in  one  hand  and  a  roll  of  parchment  in  the 
other,  rises  in  his  place  at  an  opportune  moment  and  announces 
that  he  has  a  message  from  the  King.  He  then  hands  his 
roll  of  parchment  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  who  reads  it 
to  the  House.  In  the  Commons  the  incident  is  perhaps 
a  little  more  picturesque.  The  Comptroller  of  the  House- 
hold appears  at  the  Bar  unannounced.  Unlike  the  incursions 
of  "  Black  Rod  "  from  the  House  of  Lords,  who  is  always 
heralded  by  the  loud  cry  of  the  doorkeeper,  and  must  knock 
at  the  door  to  obtain  admittance,  the  Royal  Messenger  who 
brings  the  King's  acknowledgment  of  the  Address  has  free 
entry  to  the  House.  He  comes  in.  without  fuss  or  noise, 
and,  his  duty  discharged,  is  allowed  to  depart  silently  and  in 
peace.  Standing  at  the  Bar,  in  his  dark  uniform  relieved 
by  a  liberal  display  of  gold  braid  and  gilt  buttons,  and 
carrying  his  long  white  wand,  he  announces  to  the  House — 
the  Speaker  standing  and  the  Members  uncovering  while 
the  Message  from  the  King  is  being  delivered — that  he 
brings  his  Majesty's  most  grateful  thanks  for  the  Address 
from  his  faithful  Commons.  Then  advancing  to  the  Table, 
he  hands  the  document  to  the  Clerk,  and  it  is  passed  on  to 
the  Speaker,  by  whom  it  is  read  to  the  House.  The  Comp- 
troller of  the  Royal  Household  retires,  stepping  backwards, 
bowing  to  the  Chair,  until  the  Bar  is  reached,  when,  turning 
round,  he  disappears  through  the  swing-doors.  But  this 
happens  a  week  or  more  after  the  Address  has  been  adopted, 
and  the  work  of  Parliament  has  begun  in  real  earnest. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

THE   SERJEANT-AT-ARMS 


"  Order,  order !  "  These  are  the  words  that  are  most 
frequently  heard  in  the  House  of  Commons.  They  run  like 
a  refrain,  appealing,  warning,  and,  at  times,  even  menacing, 
through  the  babble  and  confusion  of  the  Party  conflict. 
"  Order,  order  !  "  Members  shout  at  each  other  with  bitter- 
ness and  defiance  across  the  floor.  "  Order,  order  !  "  cries 
Mr.  Speaker,  when  he  observes  any  breach  of  decorum 
or  rises  to  intervene  in  an  altercation. 

A  conspicuous  object  in  the  House  of  Commons  is  a 
large  armchair  of  heavy  oak,  upholstered  in  dark  green 
leather,  at  the  Bar,  raised  a  few  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
floor,  just  inside  the  swing-doors  of  the  main  entrance  to 
the  Chamber.  It  is  the  Serjeant-at-Arms'  chair.  The  Ser- 
jeant-at-Arms is  the  chief  executive  officer  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  He  it  is  who  is  charged  with  the  duty  of  pre- 
serving decorum  in  the  Chamber  and  its  precincts,  of  execut- 
ing the  warrants  of  the  House  against  persons  it  has  adjudged 
guilty  of  breaches  of  its  privileges  or  contempt  of  its  dignity  ; 
and  it  is  he  who  backs  with  force,  when  force  is  necessary, 
the  "  Order,  order  !  "  of  Mr.  Speaker.  He  sits  in  his  chair, 
facing  the  Speaker,  picturesquely  clad  in  a  black  cut-away 
coat,  open  at  the  breast  to  show  the  daintiest  of  ruffles  in  the 
whitest  of  cambric  (of  which  fops  in  the  times  of  the  Georges 
were  so  fond),  knee-breeches,  black  silk  stockings,  and  shoes 
with  silver  buckles  ;  and,  as  the  symbol  of  the  power  and 
authority  of  his  office,  a  rapier  in  its  scabbard  is  girt  to  his 
side.  His  voice  is  very  rarely  heard  in  the  House.  It  is 
seldom  necessary  for  the  Speaker  to  give  him  an  order  in 


THE    SERJEANT-AT-ARMS  225 

words,  and  a  reply  or  explanation  from  him  is  scarcely  ever 
needed. 

The  Serjeant-at-Arms  is  appointed  by  the  King  person- 
ally. An  officer  of  his  Majesty's  Forces — alternately  soldier 
and  sailor — usually  gets  the  position.  He  is  styled  "  Serjeant- 
at-Arms  in  Ordinary  to  his  Majesty,"  and  his  duty  is,  as 
described  in  the  patent  of  his  appointment,  "  to  attend  upon 
his  Majesty  when  there  is  no  Parliament,  and  for  the  time 
of  every  Parliament  to  attend  upon  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons."  He  has  a  salary  of  £1,200  and  an 
official  residence  in  the  Palace  of  Westminster.  The  Deputy 
Serjeant-at-Arms,  who,  wearing  the  same  official  dress  as  the 
Serjeant-at-Arms,  takes  turns  at  sitting  on  guard  in  the 
big  chair  at  the  Bar,  has  a  salary  of  £800  a  year,  and  also 
lives  in  the  Palace  rent  free.  There  is  also  an  assistant 
Serjeant-at-Arms,  who  usually  attends  to  the  administrative 
work  of  the  office  outside  the  Chamber.  He  has  £500  a 
year  and  £150  as  an  allowance  for  a  house.  The  de- 
partment of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  costs  about  £14,000  a 
year,  for,  in  addition  to  his  deputy  and  assistant, 
there  are  also  two  door-keepers  and  eighteen  messengers 
(recognized  by  their  brass  chains  and  badges  of  Mercury), 
who  are  his  first  reserves  in  the  maintenance  of  order  in 
the  House. 

It  is  not  alone  to  "  strangers  "  who  have  offended  the 
dignity  and  majesty  of  the  House  of  Commons  that  the 
Serjeant-at-Arms  is  an  awe-inspiring  personage.  Even 
the  representatives  of  the  people  may  have  occasion  to 
shiver  at  the  dread  touch  of  his  hand  on  their  shoulder. 
Of  the  large  number  of  new  Members  returned  at  a  General 
Election  few  are  probably  aware  of  the  fact  (which,  indeed, 
is  not  generally  known  even  to  old  Members)  that  the  Clock 
Tower  contains  a  suite  of  rooms  for  the  confinement  of  repre- 
sentatives who  may  be  pronounced  guilty  by  the  House 
of  some  serious  breach  of  its  privileges  or  some  outrage  on 
its  decorum.  A  Member  of  Parliament  arrested  on  the 
warrant  of  the  Speaker  was  formerly  sent,  like  strangers 
guilty  of  breaches  of  privilege,  to  Newgate  or  to  the  Tower. 
But  in  the  building  of  the  Palace  of  Westminster  prison 
accommodation  was  specially  provided  for  Members  and 
VOL.  I.  15 


226     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

strangers  committed  by  the  House  to  the  custody  of  the 
Serjeant-at-Arms. 

The  prison  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  not,  however, 
a  dungeon  vile,  deep  down  below  the  vaults  of  the  Palace, 
a  dark  and  slimy  place  into  which  the  light  of  day  never 
enters.  It  is  situated  about  half-way  up  the  Clock  Tower, 
and  under  the  home  of  that  popular  London  celebrity.  Big 
Ben,  probably  the  best  known  clock  in  the  whole  world. 
There  are  two  suites  of  apartments,  each  consisting  of  two 
bedrooms — one  for  the  prisoner  and  the  other  for  one 
of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms'  messengers,  who  acts  as  gaoler — 
and  a  sitting-room.  There  is,  therefore,  accommodation 
for  two  prisoners  and  two  gaolers  in  the  Clock  Tower,  which 
so  far  has  been  found  more  than  sufficient. 

Access  to  these  rooms  is  obtained  only  through  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms,  who  is  responsible  for  the 
safe  keeping  of  a  prisoner  of  Parliament.  Their  windows 
command  a  view  of  the  Thames  and  Westminster  Bridge 
on  one  side  and  of  Palace  Yard  on  the  other.  Imprisonment 
under  any  conditions  is,  perhaps,  an  undesirable  position, 
but  it  must  be  said  that  in  the  Clock  Tower  it  is  deprived  of 
all  its  terrors  and  most  of  its  inconveniences.  The  prisoner 
may  rise  when  he  pleases  ;  his  meals  are  supplied  from  the 
catering  department  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  he  can 
have  what  he  likes  —  at  his  own  expense.  After  breakfast 
he  is  allowed  an  hour's  recreation  on  the  terrace,  accompanied 
by  his  gaoler  and  a  police-officer  in  plain  clothes,  and  he  may 
take  the  air  also  in  the  evening.  Should  his  term  of  imprison- 
ment extend  over  Sunday,  he  may  attend  service  in  St. 
John's  Church,  close  to  the  Palace  of  Westminster,  to  which 
he  is  accompanied  by  his  guards. 

The  practice  of  the  House  of  Commons,  in  recent  times, 
was  to  commit  a  person  guilty  of  any  violation  of  its  privi- 
leges to  the  custody  of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms,  to  be  detained 
during  its  pleasure.  The  imprisonment  generally  continued 
until  the  prisoner  expressed  contrition  for  his  offence,  or 
the  House  in  its  mercy  resolved  that  he  be  discharged.  But 
before  he  was  free  to  go  he  had  to  pay  a  substantial  fee  to 
the  Serjeant-at-Arms  for  locking  him  up  and  seeing  that  he 
did  not  escape.     The  House,  however,  has  no  power  to  keep 


THE   SERJEANT-AT-ARMS  227 

a  person  in  custody  during  its  recess.  If,  therefore,  the 
confinement  should  last  until  the  prorogation  of  Parliament, 
he  may  not  only  claim  his  release  but  decline  to  make 
good  the  Serjeant-at-Arms'  bill  of  costs.  The  last  occupant 
of  the  prison  was  Charles  Bradlaugh,  the  Member  for  North- 
ampton. His  confinement  for  twenty-four  hours,  in  1880, 
was  an  episode  in  his  long  contest  with  the  House  of  Commons 
over  his  claim  to  be  allowed,  as  an  atheist,  to  take  his  seat 
without  having  to  use,  in  the  oath  of  allegiance,  the  ex- 
pression, "  So  help  me,  God !  "  Bradlaugh,  in  a  con- 
versation about  his  prison  experiences,  stated  that  while  the 
rooms  were  comfortable,  and  the  confinement  by  no  means 
irksome,  the  noisy  passage  of  time  as  recorded  by  Big  Ben 
in  booming  the  quarters  and  the  hours  at  night  allowed 
him  but  little  sleep. 


Contumacy  on  the  part  of  a  Member  nowadays  would 
hardly  be  visited  by  imprisonment.  Among  the  expressions 
which  are  considered  out  of  order  are  treasonable  or  seditious 
words,  the  use  of  the  Sovereign's  name  offensively,  or,  with 
a  view  to  influence  debate,  disparaging  references  to  the 
character  and  proceedings  of  Parliament,  personal  attacks 
on  Members,  allusions  to  matters  pending  judicial  decision 
in  the  courts  of  law,  and  insulting  reflections  on  Judges  or;..;>^< 
other  persons  in  high  authority.  The  Speaker,  or  the""* 
Chairman  of  Committees,  has  also  the  power,  after  having 
called  attention  three  times  to  the  conduct  of  a  Member 
who  persists  in  irrelevance,  or  in  tedious  repetition,  to  direct 
him  to  discontinue  his  speech.  If  a  Member's  conduct  is 
grossly  disorderly,  or  if  he  refuses  to  apologize  for  an  unparlia- 
mentary expression,  the  Speaker  or  Chairman  orders  him 
to  withdraw  immediately  from  the  House  and  its  precincts 
for  the  remainder  of  the  sitting,  and  should  he  refuse  to  leave 
he  may  be  forcibly  removed  by  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  and 
his  messengers.  If  suspension  for  the  remainder  of  the 
sitting  be  deemed  by  the  Speaker  an  inadequate  punishment 
for  the  breach  of  order,  the  offending  member  may  be  named. 
The  Speaker  simply  says,  "  I  name  you,  James  Thomas 
Millwright."     The  motion  of  suspension  which  follows  the 


^, 


228     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

naming  of  a  Member  is  moved  by  the  Leader  of  the  House 
or,  in  his  absence,  by  another  Minister.  It  is  simply  and 
briefly  worded,  to  this  effect  :  "  I  beg  to  move  that  James 
Thomas  Millwright,  Member  for  Little  Peddlington,  be 
suspended  from  the  service  of  the  House."  It  is  put  to  the 
House  immediately,  no  amendment  or  debate,  or  even  an 
explanation  by  the  offending  Member,  being  allowed.  If 
the  offence  has  been  committed  in  Committee,  the  proceedings 
are  at  once  suspended,  the  Speaker  is  sent  for,  the  House 
resumes,  and  the  Chairman  reports  the  circumstances.  The 
motion  of  suspension  is  then  moved  by  the  Minister  and 
put  by  the  Speaker.  The  Member  thus  suspended  must 
forthwith  quit  the  precincts  of  the  House,  a  term  officially 
interpreted  as  "  the  area  within  the  walls  of  the  Palace  of 
Westminster."  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  period  of  suspen- 
sion is  not  mentioned  in  the  motion.  Formerly,  the  Standing 
Orders  provided  that  for  the  first  offence  it  was  to  be  one 
week,  for  the  second  a  fortnight,  and  for  each  further  offence 
one  month.  But  by  amendments  to  the  Orders  made  in 
February  1902  the  suspension  continues  in  force  till  the 
end  of  the  session,  unless  previously  rescinded.  Suspension 
involves  the  forfeiture  of  the  right  of  entry  to  the  lobby, 
the  smoking-room  and  dining-room,  the  library,  the  terrace, 
and  indeed  to  any  portion  of  the  Palace  ;  but  it  does  not 
exempt  the  Member  from  serving  on  any  committee  for  the 
consideration  of  a  Private  Bill  to  which  he  has  been  appointed, 
and  that  is  considered  an  additional  hardship. 

If  too  large  a  number  of  Members  to  be  coped  with  effec- 
tively by  the  force  at  the  command  of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms 
should  disregard  the  authority  of  the  Chair,  the  Speaker, 
by  powers  vested  in  him  in  February  1902,  may  forthwith 
adjourn  the  House.  The  new  Standing  Order  was  designed 
to  cope  with  such  a  scene  of  disorder  as  that  which  occurred 
a  short  time  previously,  when  a  force  of  police  was  brought 
into  the  Chamber  by  Mr.  Speaker  Gully  to  remove  some  Irish 
Members  who,  as  a  protest  against  being  closured  in  debate, 
refused  to  take  part  in  the  division  that  was  challenged  on 
the  question  under  discussion.  "  In  the  case  of  grave  dis- 
order arising  in  the  House,"  it  runs,  "  the  Speaker  may,  if 
he  thinks  it  necessary  to  do  so,  adjourn  the  House  wi  hout 


THE   SERJEANT-AT-ARMS  229 

question  put,  or  suspend  any  sitting  for  a  time  to  be  named 
by  him."  In  other  words,  the  Speaker  can  turn  out  the 
Hghts  and  the  reporters,  leaving  the  disorderly  Members 
to  cool  their  anger  in  privacy  and  in  darkness. 

The  House  has  also  the  power  of  expulsion.  This  punish- 
ment is  resorted  to  only  in  the  case  of  a  Member  guilty  of 
&  gross  criminal  offence.  Strangely  enough,  it  does  not 
disqualify  for  re-election,  if  the  expelled  Member  could 
persuade  a  constituency  to  accept  him.  But  to  name  a 
Member  is  the  highest  coercive  authority  vested  in  the 
Speaker  for  dealing  with  disorderly  conduct  in  the  House. 
It  should  be  a  very  grave  breach  of  the  privileges  of  the 
House,  or  very  indecorous  conduct  within  its  walls,  that 
nowadays  would  land  a  Member  in  the  prison  of  the  Clock 
Tower. 

But  to  see  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  in  all  his  glory  one  must 
have  the  good  fortune  to  be  present  on  one  of  those  rare 
occasions  when  some  outside  violator  of  the  privileges  of 
the  House  is  brought  to  the  Bar  for  judgment.  Parliament 
can  itself  redress  its  wrongs  and  vindicate  its  privileges. 
It  acknowledges  no  higher  authority.  It  has  the  power 
summarily  to  punish  disobedience  of  its  orders  and  mandates, 
indignities  offered  to  its  proceedings,  assaults  upon  the 
persons  or  reflections  upon  the  characters  of  its  Members,  or 
interference  with  its  officers  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties. 
The  Serjeant-at-Arms  can  arrest,  under  the  warrant  of  the 
Speaker  issued  by  order  of  the  House,  any  person  anywhere 
within  the  limits  of  the  kingdom.  In  the  execution  of  the 
warrant  he  can  call  on  the  aid  of  the  civil  power.  If  he  thinks 
it  necessar}^  he  can  even  summon  the  military  to  his  assist- 
ance. He  can  break  into  a  private  residence  between  sunrise 
and  sunset,  if  he  has  reason  to  suspect  that  the  person  he 
is  in  search  of  is  inside. 

The  most  famous  case  of  house-breaking  in  execution 
of  a  warrant  of  the  Commons  was  the  forcible  entrance  into 
the  residence  of  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  in  Piccadilly,  by  the 
Serjeant-at-Arms,  supported  by  police  and  military,  and 
the  arrest  of  the  Radical  Member  for  Westminster  and  his 
commitment  to  the  Tower.  Burdett  was  pronounced  guilty 
of  a  breach  of  privilege  in  April  1810  by  declaring  in  a  letter 


230    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

to  his  constituents  that  the  Commons  had  exceeded  their 
powers  in  sending  to  prison  John  Gale  Jones,  the  revolutionary 
orator,  and  an  order  for  his  commitment  to  the  Tower  was 
carried  by  a  Majority  of  38 — 190  against  152.  Burdett 
barricaded  his  house  against  the  Serjeant-at-Arms.  An 
entrance  was  effected  by  climbing  the  area  railings  and 
breaking  open  the  area  door.  The  Serjeant-at-Arms  found 
Burdett  in  the  drawing-room  upstairs.  "  Sir,"  said  Burdett, 
"  do  you  demand  me  in  the  name  of  the  King  ?  In  that 
case  I  am  prepared  to  obey."  "  No,  sir,"  replied  the  Serjeant- 
at-Arms,  "  I  demand  you  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority 
of  the  Commons  of  England."  Burdett  protested  that  the 
law  of  the  land  was  being  violated,  but  he  was  carried  off 
and  lodged  in  the  Tower.  An  action  which  he  afterwards 
brought  against  the  Speaker  for  false  imprisonment  failed 
on  the  ground  that  the  Commons  are  the  supreme  guardian 
of  its  own  privileges  and  upholder  of  its  authority.  Neither 
does  any  suit  lie  against  the  Serjeant-at-Arms.  Arising  out 
of  proceedings  brought  in  1884  by  Charles  Bradlaugh  for 
assault  against  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  in  having  him  removed 
by  force  from  the  House  of  Commons,  Lord  Chief  Justice 
Coleridge  laid  it  down  that  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  was 
not  liable  for  damages  in  the  execution  of  his  duty,  and 
that  the  court  had  no  jurisdiction  over  him. 

S 

The  Serjeant-at-Arms  brings  his  prisoner  to  the  House 
of  Commons.  A  brass  rod  is  pulled  out  from  the  receptacle 
in  which  it  is  telescoped  at  the  Bar,  and  stretched  across 
the  line  which  marks  the  technical  boundary  of  the  Chamber. 
The  fixing  of  that  glittering  rod  is  almost  as  fearfully 
thrilling  as  the  putting  on  of  the  black  cap  by  the  Judge 
to  impose  the  sentence  of  death,  and  I  have  seen  both  spec- 
tacles. Behind  the  rod  stands  the  prisoner.  To  his  right  is  the 
Serjeant-at-Arms,  carrying  the  glittering  Mace  on  his  shoulder. 
At  tlie  other  end  of  the  Chamber,  standing  on  the  dais  of 
the  Chair,  is  Mr.  Speaker  in  his  flowing  silk  gown,  his  face 
sternly  set  under  his  huge  wig — an  awful  figure  indeed — 
delivering  in  the  weightiest  words  he  can  command,  amid 


THE   SERJEANT-AT-ARMS  231 

the  dramatic  hush  of  the  crowded  Chamber,  the  sentence 
or  reprimand  of  the  House  on  the  scorner  or  violator  of  its 
ancient  privileges.  On  such  occasions,  the  Mace  being  off 
the  table,  no  Member  can  address  the  House.  It  would  be 
out  of  order  for  a  Member  to  put  a  question  direct  to 
the  prisoner  at  the  Bar.  If  therefore  a  Member  desires 
to  put  such  a  question  he  must  write  it  down  and  sub- 
mit it  to  the  Speaker,  who  alone  has  then  the  right  of 
speech. 

In  former  times  the  prisoner  at  the  Bar  was  compelled 
to  kneel  down  while  the  Speaker  delivered  the  sentence  or 
censure  of  the  House.  In  February  1751  a  Scottish  gentleman 
named  Alexander  Murray  (brother  of  the  Master  of  Elibank), 
having,  in  the  course  of  a  contested  election  at  Westminster, 
under  the  very  shadow  of  the  House,  spoken  disrespectfully 
of  the  authority  of  that  august  assembly,  was  brought  to  the 
Bar  in  custody.  But  so  unimpressed  was  he  by  the  crowded 
benches,  by  Mr.  Speaker  Onslow  in  wig  and  go^vn,  by  the 
Serjeant-at-Arms  with  the  Mace  on  his  shoulder,  that  he 
flatly  declined  to  kneel,  though  the  Speaker  sternly  roared 
at  him,  "  Your  obeisance,  sir  !  You  forget  yourself !  On 
your  knees,  sir !  "  "  Sir,"  said  Murray,  "  I  beg  to  be  excused  ; 
I  never  kneel  but  to  God."  "  On  your  knees,  sir  !  "  again 
cried  the  Speaker.  "  Your  obeisance — you  must  kneel." 
But  down  on  his  knees  Murray  stoutly  declined  to  go. 
"  That,"  said  he,  "  is  an  attitude  of  humbleness  which  I 
adopt  only  when  I  confess  my  sins  to  the  Almighty."  The 
House  declared  that  this  obstinacy  aggravated  his  original 
offence.  "  Having  in  a  most  insolent,  audacious  manner, 
at  the  Bar  of  the  House,  absolutely  refused  to  go  upon  his 
knees,"  so  ran  the  resolution  of  the  House,  "  he  is  guilty 
of  a  high  and  most  dangerous  contempt  of  the  authority 
and  privileges  of  this  House."  Murray  was  committed  to 
Newgate,  and  so  close  was  his  confinement  that  he  was 
denied  the  visits  of  friends  and  the  use  of  pen,  ink  and 
paper.  Committal  to  prison  by  Parliament  lapses,  as  1 
have  said,  at  the  end  of  the  session.  That  being  so,  when 
Parliament  was  prorogued  the  doors  of  Murray's  prison 
had  to  be  flung  open.  The  House  of  Commons,  however, 
was  not  satisfied  that  three  or  four  months'  incarceration 


232     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

had  adequately  purged  the  Scotsman  of  his  impudent  offence. 
It  has  power  to  re-arrest  when  Parhament  meets  again. 
Accordingly,  in  the  new  session  a  fresh  warrant  for  Murray's 
committal  was  made  out,  and  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  went 
to  his  house  to  arrest  him  ;  but  he  had  fled,  and  though 
a  reward  of  £500  was  offered  for  his  discovery,  he  was  never 
captured. 

Twenty  years  afterwards  the  custom  requiring  prisoners 
to  kneel  at  the  Bar  was  abolished.  The  last  prisoner  to 
suffer  this  indignity  was  a  journalist — Mr.  Baldwin,  the 
publisher  of  The  St.  James's  Chronicle.  On  March  14,  1771, 
he  was  arrested  for  publishing  a  report  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  House,  and  was  compelled  to  prostrate  himself  abjectly 
at  the  Bar  while  the  Speaker  scolded  him  for  having  dared 
to  inform  the  electors  of  the  doinqs  of  their  representatives 
in  Parliament.  In  1772  a  Standing  Order  was  passed — 
inspired,  as  John  Hatsell,  the  Clerk  of  the  House,  ingenuously 
suggests,  by  "  the  humanity  of  the  House  " —  by  which  it 
was  ordered  that  in  future  delinquents  should  receive  the 
Speaker's  judgment  standing.  Perhaps  the  House  was 
moved  to  take  this  action  by  the  cutting  irony  of  a  remark 
made  by  Baldwin.  On  rising  from  his  knees,  after  being 
censured,  he  said,  as  he  brushed  the  dust  from  his  clothes, 
"  What  a  damned  dirty  House !  "  Perhaps  the  House  pre- 
ferred to  allow  culprits  to  stand  at  the  Bar  rather  than  run 
the  risk,  by  making  them  kneel,  of  exposing  its  majestic 
self  any  longer  to  such  ridicule. 

The  peers,  however,  have  never  formally  renounced  this 
custom  by  Standing  Order.  Warren  Hastings  was  obliged 
to  kneel  at  the  Bar  of  the  House  of  Lords  on  being  admitted 
to  bail,  in  1787,  on  his  impeachment ;  and  again,  at  the 
opening  of  his  trial  in  the  following  year,  he  remained  on 
his  knees  until  directed  to  rise  by  the  Lord  Chancellor. 
"  I  can,"  he  afterwards  wrote,  half  pathetically  and  half 
indignantly,  "  with  truth  affirm  that  I  have  borne  with  in- 
difference all  the  base  treatment  I  have  had  dealt  to  me 
— all  except  the  ignominious  ceremonial  of  kneeling  before 
the  House."  Even  on  being  called  to  the  Bar  to  hear  his 
acquittal  announced  by  the  Lord  Chancellor,  eight  years 
subsequently,  he  had  to  undergo  the  same  humiliating  ordeal. 


THE   SERJEANT-AT-ARMS  233 

But  the  Lords  have  not  for  many  years  now  required  a 
/prisoner  at  the  Bar  to  kneel. 


Persons  of  all  sorts  and  descriptions,  as  the  Journals 
of  the  House  show,  have  stood  at  the  Bar  of  the  Commons 
not  only  for  disobedience  of  the  orders  of  the  House,  for 
indignities  offered  to  it,  for  insults  to  Members,  for  reflections 
on  their  character  and  conduct  in  Parliament,  for  interfer- 
ence with  the  officers  of  the  House  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties,  but  also  to  give  evidence  in  inquiries  instituted  by 
the  House,  to  plead  some  cause,  or  to  receive  the  thanks  of 
the  House  for  services  to  the  State.  In  each  case  the  Serjeant- 
at-Arms,  with  the  Mace  on  his  shoulder,  was  a  prominent 
figure  in  the  scene.  Samuel  Pepys  stood  at  the  Bar  to  defend 
himself  against  charges  of  dereliction  of  duty  as  registrar 
of  the  Navy  Board.  To  fortif}^  himself  for  the  ordeal  he 
drank  at  home  a  half-pint  of  mulled  sack,  and  just  before 
being  called  to  the  Bar  he  added  a  dram  of  brandy.  So 
completely  did  he  answer  the  accusations  that  he  and  his 
fellow-officials  were  acquitted  of  all  blame.  Titus  Gates, 
the  perjurer,  stood  there  to  relate  the  particulars  of  his 
Popish  Plot.  Dr.  Sacheverell,  the  Jacobite  divine,  stood 
there  in  1709  to  answer  the  charge  of  preaching  "  a  scurrilous 
and  seditious  libel  "  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral — that  famous 
sermon  in  which  he  asserted  that  it  was  sinful  for  subjects 
to  resist  the  authority  of  the  King.  Wellington  sat  on  a 
chair,  set  for  him  within  the  Bar,  in  1814,  to  receive  the 
thanks  of  the  House  of  Commons  for  his  services  in  the 
Peninsular  campaign.  Mrs.  Clarke,  the  discarded  mistress 
of  the  Duke  of  York,  appeared  there  in  1809,  to  give  evidence 
in  support  of  the  charge  brought  against  his  Royal  Highness 
of  having,  as  Commander-in-Chief,  corruptly  bartered  in 
the  sale  of  Army  Commissions,  an  accusation  that  was 
declared  not  proven,  though  it  led  to  the  Duke's  resignation. 
Warren  Hastings  stood  there  as  a  witness,  close  on  thirty 
years  after  his  impeachment.  Members  cheered  him  on 
his  appearance,  and  when  he  retired  they  rose  and  uncovered. 
Daniel  O'Connell,  the  first  Roman  Catholic  elected  to  Parlia- 


234    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

ment  since  the  Revolution,  stood  there  is  1828  to  plead, 
and  plead  in  vain,  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  take  his 
seat  without  having  to  subscribe  to  the  oath  which  declared 
his  faith  to  be  idolatrous  and  blasphemous,  an  abjuration, 
however,  that  w^as  abolished  by  the  Catholic  Emancipation 
Act  which  was  passed  in  the  following  year. 

Persons  not  so  distinguished  or  notorious  have  also 
stood  at  the  Bar,  in  the  custody  of  the  Serjeant-at-Arms, 
charged  with  whimsical  breaches  of  privilege.  A  man  named 
Hyde,  w'ho  tried  to  obtain  admission  to  Westminster  Hall 
at  the  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings,  was  rudely  jostled 
into  Palace  Yard  by  a  policeman.  Hyde  had  the  constable 
served  with  a  summons  for  assault.  For  this  Hyde  was 
arrested  by  the  Serjeant-at-Arms,  on  the  order  of  the  House, 
brought  to  the  Bar,  and  actually  committed  to  prison 
for  a  breach  of  privilege  in  having  attempted  to  bring  an 
officer  of  the  House  before  the  ordinary  legal  tribunals  of 
the  land.  But  perhaps  the  most  amusing  instance  remains 
to  be  told.  Dick  Martin,  a  well-known  Irish  Member  in 
the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  (founder  of  the 
excellent  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals), 
was  greatly  perturbed  to  find  in  a  London  newspaper  some 
passages  of  his  speech  in  the  House,  the  previous  night, 
printed  in  italics.  He  complained  to  the  House  of  having 
been  misrepresented,  and  the  reporter  (who  happened  to 
be  a  fellow-countryman  of  Mr.  Martin)  was  brought  to  the 
Bar  for  a  breach  of  privilege.  The  journalist  pleaded  that 
the  report  was  absolutely  correct.  "  It  may  be,"  replied 
the  indignant  Irish  representative,  "but  I  defy  the  gentle- 
man to  prove  that  I  spoke  in  italics  !  "  In  this  case  the 
culprit  was  dismissed  amid  the  laughter  of  the  House. 


CHAPTER   XX 

A    NIGHT    IN    THE    HOUSE   OF   COMMONS 


The  House  of  Commons  is  the  supreme  authorit}''  in  this 
land.  It  should,  therefore,  be  a  consoling  thought  to  the 
people  that  every  sitting  of  the  House  is  opened  with  a 
prayer  for  Divine  light  and  guidance  in  the  exercise  of  its 
unlimited  powers  of  legislation.  Both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment have  used  the  prayer  since  the  Restoration  of  Charles 
II  in  1660.  Besides  the  spiritual  benefit  that  a  Member 
derives  from  attendance  at  the  service,  he  also  gets  the 
material  advantage  of  a  seat  during  the  sitting,  which,  as 
the  Chamber  provides  places  only  for  about  half  its  member- 
ship, is  an  additional  inducement  to  be  present  at  prayers. 
Mr.  Speaker  stands  at  the  head  of  the  Table.  By  his 
side  is  the  Chaplain  in  gown  and  bands.  Standing  in  files 
along  the  benches  are  the  Members — the  two  great  political 
Parties  facing  each  other  across  the  floor.  The  service  opens 
with  the  67th  Psalm,  with  its  aspirations  for  the  enlarge- 
ment of  God's  Kingdom,  to  the  joy  of  the  people  and  the 
increase  of  God's  blessings.  "  O  let  the  nations  be  glad 
and  sing  for  joy,  for  Thou  shalt  judge  the  people  righteously 
and  govern  the  nations  upon  earth."  The  sublime  maxims 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer  are  recited.  For  social  policy  :  "  Thy 
will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Give  us  this  day 
our  daily  bread  ;  "  and  for  foreign  affairs,  "  And  forgive 
us  our  trespasses  as  we  forgive  them  that  trespass  against 
us.  And  lead  us  not  into  temptation."  There  are  prayers 
for  the  King  and  Queen.  Then  follows  the  invocation  to 
God  on  behalf  of  the  House  of  Commons,  at  which  the 
Members  turn  to  the  walls  with  bowed  heads. 

23S 


236    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

The  Chaplain  prays  : 

Send  down  the  Heavenly  Wisdom  from  above  to  direct  and  guide 
us  in  all  our  consultations  ;  and  grant  that  we,  having  Thy  fear  always 
before  our  eyes,  and  laying  aside  all  private  interests,  prejudices, 
and  partial  affections,  the  result  of  all  our  counsels  may  be  to  the 
Glory  of  Thy  blessed  Name,  the  maintenance  of  true  religion  and 
justice,  the  safety,  honour  and  happiness  of  the  King,  the  public 
welfare,  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  realm,  and  the  uniting  and 
knitting  together  of  the  hearts  of  all  persons  and  estates  within  the 
same  in  true  Christian  love  and  charity  one  towards  another,  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  and  Saviour.    Amen. 

Strangers  are  not  admitted  to  the  galleries  until  prayers 
are  over.  If  they  were  present  they  could  not  fail  to  notice 
a  strange  thing.  That  is,  that  the  Treasury  Bench  is  always 
empty  during  the  service.  Ministers  may  be  really  more  in 
need  of  prayers  than  private  Members,  but  then  their  seats 
in  the  Chamber  are  secured  to  them  by  prescriptive  right. 

The  first  sight  of  the  plain  architectural  features  of  the 
House  of  Commons  must  be  disappointing  to  any  one  swayed 
by  the  great  and  stirring  historical  associations  of  the  place. 
If  there  be  any  secular  institution  to  which  something  of 
religious  solemnity  should  attach,  it  surely  is  the  free  Legisla- 
ture of  a  Nation,  M'here  the  habits,  customs  and  institutions 
of  the  people  are  largely  moulded,  where,  at  any  rate,  the 
morality  or  ethics  of  the  country  find  expression  in  laws. 
The  Chamber  is  unadorned.  The  prevailing  colour  is  dull 
brown,  conveyed  by  the  oak  framework  of  galleries  and 
panelled  walls  plainly  carved.  In  the  daylight  a  warm 
dimness  prevails.  At  night  the  Chamber  looks  more  im- 
pressive, when  a  mellow  radiance  streaming  from  the  lights 
through  its  glass  ceiling  falls  upon  the  crowded  benches. 
But  to  the  uninstructed  stranger  accidentally  straying  into 
it  on  an  off-day,  its  stiff  arrangement  of  tiers  of  benches, 
upholstered  in  dark  green,  on  each  side,  and  the  absence 
of  any  pictorial  background,  would  suggest  an  assembly- 
room  or  debating-hall,  with  a  certain  air  of  distinction,  it 
is  true,  but  lacking  character  and  soul.  Is  it  really  in  this 
simple  Chamber  of  modest  dimensions  and  severe  aspect 
that  the  elected  and  principal  House  of  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment is  content  to  meet  ?     Is  it  here  that  since  1852 — the 


A   NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS         237 

year  the  Chamber  was  first  occupied — so  many  exciting  and 
momentous  battles  over  political  principles  have  been  fought  ? 
Is  it  from  this  narrow  hall  that  influences  radiate  which  are 
felt  to  the  farthest  confines  of  the  world,  in  the  wigwams 
of  savage  tribes  as  well  as  in  the  Chancelleries  of  the  Great 
Pov/ers  ?  You  would  do  well,  indeed,  when  you  visit  the 
House  of  Commons  and  desire  to  fall  under  its  spell,  to  come 
with  your  historical  memories  refreshed,  for  you  will  there 
see  nothing  in  the  way  of  portraits  of  its  immortal  Members, 
or  pictures  from  its  storied  past,  to  tell  of  its  greatness  and 
renown. 

What  emotions  have  there  found  vent !  These  walls, 
sheathed  in  oak,  have  echoed  to  the  voices  of  the  great 
Parliamentarians  of  three  reigns — Victoria,  Edward  and 
George — Palmerston,  Lord  John  Russell,  Cobden,  Disraeli, 
Bright,  Parnell,  Randolph  Churchill,  Gladstone,  Chamberlain, 
Balfour,  Asquith,  John  Redmond,  Lloyd  George,  Winston 
Churchill,  Lord  Hugh  Cecil — laying  down  beneficent  truths 
or  pernicious  fallacies.  Think  of  the  groans  of  despair 
and  the  shouts  of  exultation  these  forcible  and  vibrating 
personages  have  aroused  !  With  what  volumes  of  sound, 
rising  from  the  hearts  of  men  and  expressive  of  every 
phase  of  human  feeling — joy  and  grief,  pathos  and  humour, 
pity  and  contempt,  exasperation  and  rage — has  the  Chamber 
reverberated.  Fine  things  have  been  said  here,  and  mean 
things.  Great  ideas  have  been  expressed  by  great  men  who 
worthily  served  them.  The  storms  of  passion,  evoked  by 
the  clash  between  opposing  reason  and  thought  in  the 
political  controversies  that  have  been  fought  out  there  at 
close  quarters,  have  made  the  atmosphere  of  the  House  of 
Commons  humid  and  warm  with  emotion,  and  one  with  a 
mind  at  all  sympathetically  attuned  to  the  spirit  of  places 
cannot  be  there  very  long  before  the  effluence  that  emanates 
from  these  panelled  walls  is  thrilling  him  through  and 
through. 

Yet  there  are  objects  within  the  Chamber,  made  sacred 
almost  by  history  and  tradition,  which  at  once  catch  the 
eye.  The  visitor  will  notice  with  becoming  awe  the  high 
canopied  Chair,  surmounted  by  an  oak  carving  of  the  Royal 
Arms,  and  will  look  with  fitting  reverence  on  Mr.  Speaker 


238     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

in  his  big  grey  wig  and  black  silk  gown.  At  the  head  of 
the  Table,  beneath  the  Speaker,  sits  the  Clerk  of  the  House 
and  the  two  assistant  clerks,  all  in  the  gowns  and  short 
wigs  of  barristers-at-law,  busily  discharging  their  multifarious 
duties,  such  as  sub-editing  papers  handed  in  by  Members 
containing  questions  to  be  addressed  to  Ministers,  amend- 
ments to  be  moved  to  Bills,  and  notices  of  motions  to  be 
proposed  should  opportunity  offer,  and  also  taking  minutes 
of  the  proceedings  for  the  Journals  of  the  House.  The 
Table  is  indeed  a  "  substantial  piece  of  furniture,"  as  Disraeli 
once  described  it  when  he  spoke  of  his  satisfaction  that  it 
lay  between  him  and  Gladstone,  who  had  just  concluded 
a  fierce  declamatory  attack.  It  contains  pens,  ink  and 
stationery  for  the  use  of  Members,  volumes  of  the  Standing 
Orders  and  other  works  of  reference.  At  the  end  of  the 
Table,  on  either  side,  are  two  brass-bound  oaken  boxes. 
These  are  the  famous  "  dispatch-boxes  "  on  which  Ministers 
and  ex-Ministers  lay  their  notes  when  addressing  the  House, 
and  following  the  traditional  example  of  great  statesmen 
in  the  past,  thump  to  give  emphasis  to  an  argument  or, 
metaphorically,  to  bash  the  head  of  an  opponent. 
■^N  The  Table  is  also  made  to  serve  a  part  in  parliamentary 
procedure.  Important  documents,  such  as  the  reports  of 
Committees,  and  Foreign  Office  papers  have  to  be  "  laid 
on  the  Table,"  or,  in  other  words,  presented  to  the  House, 
before  they  can  properly  be  made  public  ;  and  Orders  of 
Departments  have  likewise  to  be  "  laid  "  for  specified  periods 
preliminary  to  their  coming  into  operation.  Even  the  floor- 
covering  of  the  Chamber  is  a  chapter  from  history.  See  the 
red  border-lines  on  the  matting  right  down  the  floor,  about 
two  feet  from  the  front  benches  below  the  gangways.  The 
opposing  parties  must  not  step  beyond  that  line  while  in 
the  act  of  speaking.  And  why  ?  Because  centuries  ago 
Members  were  as  ready  to  enforce  an  argument  with  the 
sword  as  with  the  tongue,  and,  to  hedge  them  in,  these  lines 
of  demarcation  were  drawn  down  the  centre  of  the  House. 
But  of  all  the  objects  in  the  House  calculated  to  awaken 
historic  memories  the  Mace,  perhaps,  is  the  most  potent. 
Made  of  silver  and  gilt  with  gold,  its  large  globular  head  sur- 
mounted by  a  cross  and  ball,  its  staff  artistically  embellished. 


A   NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS         239 

it  lies  a  prominent  and  luminous  object,  when  the  Speaker 
is  in  the  Chair,  on  raised  supports  at  the  end  of  the  Table. 


Business  begins  the  moment  the  Speaker  takes  the  Chair. 
It  is  noted  for  its  miscellaneous  character.  Private  Bills — 
or  Bills  introduced  on  behalf  of  the  promoters  of  commercial 
or  municipal  undertakings  which  interfere  with  rights  of 
property — are  first  considered.  But  the  proceedings  are 
formal,  and  devoid  of  interest.  Petitions  are  also  presented 
to  the  House  at  this  stage  of  the  sitting.  A  Member  rises 
in  his  place  and,  stating  that  he  has  a  petition  to  present, 
reads  a  brief  summary  of  its  purport.  It  invariabl}'"  ends 
with  the  phrase,  "  And  your  petitioners  will  ever  pray, 
etc."  No  one  has  ever  seen  the  sentence  completed.  What, 
then,  can  "  etc."  imply  ?  It  seems  a  slovenly  and  irreverent 
way  of  saying  one's  prayers,  reminiscent  of  the  backwoods- 
man who  chalked  up  his  pious  wishes  at  the  head  of  his  bed, 
and,  when  tumbling  in  at  night,  jerked  his  thumb  over 
his  shoulder  saying,  "  Lord,  them's  my  sentiments."  "  Will 
the  honourable  Member  bring  it  up  ?  "  says  the  Speaker, 
referring,  of  course,  to  the  petition.  The  Member  w^alks 
up  the  floor  and  drops  the  roll  into  the  yawning  mouth  of 
a  big  black  bag,  hanging  at  the  back  of  the  Chair.  More 
often  than  not  there  is  no  public  mention  whatever  of  the 
petition  in  the  House.  The  Member  to  whom  it  is  sent 
contents  himself  with  privately  stowing  it  away  into  the 
bag,  without  anyone  being  made  a  bit  the  wiser  as  to  its 
nature  or  signatures.  Through  the  yawning  mouth  of  this 
big  black  bag  petitions  may  be  said  to  drop  out  of  sight  and 
out  of  mind  into  the  limbo  of  waste  and  forgotten  things. 
Their  presentation  is  recorded  in  the  Journals  of  the  House. 
But  the\'  make  no  impression  whatever  on  the  minds  of 
Members  as  to  the  grievances  they  are  intended  to  expose, 
and  they  are  heard  of  no  more,  except  the  Committee  on 
Petitions,  before  whom,  in  due  course,  they  come  for  scrutiny, 
find  some  of  the  regulations  have  been  violated — that,  for 
instance,  the  prayer  of  a  petition,  instead  of  being  in  writing, 
is  printed,  or  lithographed,  or  typewritten,  or  that  several 


240     THE    PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

of  the  signatures  are  in  the  same  handwriting,  or  denote 
persons  manifestly  fietitious,  such  as  "  Charles  Piccadilly," 
"  John  Trafalgar  Square  " — put  down  by  jokers — when 
the  petition  is  either  returned  for  correction  to  the  Member 
who  presented  it  or  its  rejection  is  recommended.  Two 
municipal  bodies  have  the  privilege  of  presenting  petitions 
ceremoniously  at  the  Bar  of  the  House  of  Commons — the 
Corporation  of  the  City  of  London  and  the  Corporation  of 
Dublin.  In  the  early  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century 
petitions  were  read  in  full  by  Members  who  presented  them, 
and  there  were  great  debates  arising  out  of  them  on  such 
questions  as  Negro  slavery  within  the  Empire,  the  political 
emancipation  of  Catholic  or  Jew,  and  parliamentary  reform. 
I  have  seen,  in  the  later  years  of  the  same  century,  huge 
petitions  with  hundreds  of  thousands  of  signatures  trundled 
up  the  floor  of  the  House  like  enormous  cartwheels  or  big 
drums.  They  related  usually  to  proposed  changes  in  primary 
education  or  the  liquor  laws — the  two  chief  subjects  of 
controversy  in  the  dull  and  happy  time  I  speak  of.  But 
the  sending  of  petitions  is  almost  a  thing  of  the  past.  The 
House  has  become  indifferent  to  any  form  of  persuasion  save 
that  of  elections. 

The  Chamber  has  now  rapidly  filled  up  for  "  question 
time,"  which  is  often  the  most  interesting  part  of  a  sitting. 
One  of  the  most  precious  and  highly  cherished  privileges 
of  a  Member  is  the  right  to  question  Ministers — before 
the  House  proceeds  to  business — in  relation  to  public  affairs, 
matters  of  administration,  policy  or  legislation.  Moreover, 
these  interrogations  and  replies  are  an  unfailing  source  of 
interest  and  also  of  entertainment.  The  House  then  in- 
variably wears  an  alert  and  animated  aspect.  The  benches 
on  both  sides  are  thronged.  Every  Member  is  supplied  with 
a  copy  of  the  official  programme  called  the  "  Orders  of 
the  Day  " — a  white  folio  paper  of  many  pages,  in  which 
the  questions  are  printed,  with  other  matter  relating  to  the 
business  arranged  for  the  sitting — and  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  sights  which  the  House  affords  is  the  flutter 
of  these  papers  on  the  crowded  benches,  as  the  questions 
are  put  and  answered.  The  proceedings  are  followed  with 
the   closest  attention,   with,   in  fact,   an  absorbed  interest 


A   NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS        241 

which  during  a  debate  is  evoked  only  by  a  really  great 
speech  on  a  subject  of  the  first  importance.  The  questions 
deal  with  all  sorts  of  topics,  illustrating  at  once  the  free- 
dom of  inquiry  within  the  House  and  the  jurisdiction  of 
Parliament  within   the   far-spreading   Empire. 

Questions  are  given  in  writing  to  the  Clerks  at  the  Table. 
"  A  question,"  according  to  the  Standing  Orders,  "  must 
not  contain  any  argument,  inference,  imputation,  epithet 
or  ironical  expression."  The  judge  of  the  regularity  of  a 
question  is  the  Speaker.  He  disallows  it  if  in  his  opinion 
it  is  an  abuse  of  the  right  of  questioning,  the  sole  object 
of  which  is  to  obtain  information  from  the  Government. 
Questions  are  sometimes  altered  by  the  Clerks  on  the  ground 
of  impropriety  of  expression.  Members  occasionally  com- 
plain of  this  censorship.  The  Irish  Party  once  resented 
the  insertion  at  the  Table  of  the  word  "  Roman  "  before 
"  Catholic  "  in  a  question  handed  in  by  one  of  their  Members. 
Mr.  Speaker  Lowther  was  greatly  surprised  that  they  should 
have  regarded  the  word  as  offensive,  but  promised,  in 
deference  to  their  feelings,  it  would  not  be  used  again.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  rejoiced  over  their  success  in  having 
the  term  "  land-grabbers  " — one  of  ill-omen,  in  Irish  agrarian 
agitation — passed  in  a  question  and  thus  appearing  for 
the  first  time  on  the  official  records  of  Parliament.  I  can 
also  recall  instances  of  Members  who  refused  to  put  questions 
as  they  appeared  in  print.  They  were  so  different  from  the 
form  in  which  they  had  been  given  in  manuscript  to  the 
Clerks  that  their  authors  absolutely  disowned  them.  But 
however  questions  may  be  sub-edited,  it  is  rarely  that  one 
is  rejected  altogether  by  the  Speaker.  A  question  addressed 
to  a  Minister  must,  of  course,  relate  to  some  public  affair 
with  which  he  is  officially  concerned,  or  to  a  matter  of  policy 
or  administration  for  which  he  is  responsible.  Subject  to 
these  limitations  a  Member  may  put  down  four  questions 
daily  interrogating  Ministers  on  any  subject,  no  matter  how 
local  or  trivial,  for  there  are  little  things  as  well  as  great 
things  in  regard  to  which  the  House  daily  exercises  super- 
vision or  requires  to  be  informed.  The  Minister,  however, 
may  decline  to  answer  a  question  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
against  the  public  interest.  This  stops  the  irresponsible 
VOL.  I.  16 


242     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

interference  of  Members  in  the  most  delicate  functions  of 
the  Executive,  which,  if  allowed,  especially  in  foreign  affairs, 
might  be  productive  of  embarrassing  and  perhaps  hazardous 
consequences. 

Questions  of  an  urgent  character,  or  of  exceptional 
importance,  may  be  asked  without  being  printed  in  the 
"  Orders  of  the  Day,"  provided  private  notice — or  notice, 
by  letter — has  been  given  to  the  particular  Minister  and 
the  consent  of  the  Speaker  has  been  previously  obtained. 
These  special  interrogations  are  always  put  when  the  printed 
questions  are  disposed  of.  But  the  usual  custom  is  for  two 
or  three  days'  notice  to  be  given,  in  order  to  afford  time  for 
the  preparation  of  the  replies.  It  is  not  the  Ministers  who 
discharge  the  task  of  obtaining  the  information  that  is  asked 
for.  The  questions  are  sent  to  the  different  departments, 
to  whose  parliamentary  chiefs  they  are  addressed,  and  the 
answers  are  drafted  by  the  permanent  staff.  In  most  cases 
all  the  Minister  has  to  do  with  the  replies  is  to  read  them  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  The  day's  questions  are  printed, 
as  I  have  said,  in  the  "  Orders  of  the  Day."  They  are 
prefixed  with  the  names  of  the  Members  responsible  for  them 
and  are  also  numbered.  The  way  in  which  they  are  put 
is  direct  and  simple.  Each  Member  rises  in  his  place  when 
called  on,  in  succession,  by  the  Speaker,  and  says  :  "I 
beg  to  ask  the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Home  Department 
question  No.  1,"  or,  "  I  beg  to  ask  the  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty  question  No.  40."  The  Treasury  Bench,  be  it 
understood,  is  crowded  with  Ministers,  each  of  them  in  pos- 
session of  a  bundle  of  typewritten  answers  supplied  to  him 
by  the  clerks  of  his  department.  Accordingly,  the  Home 
Secretary  looks  up  question  No.  1,  or  the  First  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty  question  No.  40,  from  his  bundle  and  reads 
it  to  the  House. 

The  growth  of  this  practice  of  questioning  Ministers 
has  been  very  remarkable.  It  was  not  until  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  that  it  became  an  established 
feature  of  the  proceedings  of  the  House  of  Commons.  In 
1849  a  special  place  was  assigned  to  questions  in  the  "  Orders 
of  the  Day."  Before  that  year  they  were  few  in  number  ; 
they  referred  mainly  to  the  arrangement  and  progress  of 


A  NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS        243 

business,  and  were  rarely  printed.  The  first  time  a  question 
appeared  in  the  "  Orders  of  tlie  Day  "  was  in  1835.  But 
after  1849  questions  were  printed  regularly  in  the  "  Orders 
of  the  Day,"  and  the  subjects  inquired  about — confined, 
previously,  to  pending  legislation — extended  gradually  to 
public  affairs  and  matters  of  administration.  Still,  it  was 
rare  to  see  more  than  twelve,  or  at  the  most  twenty,  questions 
on  the  paper  for  thirty  years  subsequently.  In  the  session 
of  1860  the  number  of  questions  asked  was  699  ;  in  1870, 
1,203  ;  in  1880,  1,546  ;  in  1890,  4,407,  and  in  1920  over 
5,000,  The  questions  occasionally  exceed  200  per  day. 
The  average  number  is  about  150.  All  this  shows  how 
interpellation,  like  other  functions  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
came  almost  haphazardly  into  operation,  and  now  rests 
immovably  on  the  foundation  of  privilege.  And  the  Com- 
mittee on  National  Expenditure  reported  during  the  Great 
War  that  each  question  costs  the  country  thirty  shillings. 
Until  1880  it  was  the  practice  of  Members  to  read  every 
question  when  putting  it  to  the  Minister,  although  it  was 
printed  in  the  "  Orders  of  the  Day."  On  July  8,  1880, 
after  question  time,  Joseph  Cowen  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  two  hours  had  been  occupied  in  asking  and  answering 
questions.  Yet  the  number  of  questions  put  that  day  was 
only  thirty.  He  added  that,  having  taken  the  time  on  his 
watch,  he  had  found  the  mere  reading  of  the  questions 
occupied  an  hour  ;  and  he  asked  the  Speaker  whether,  as 
the  questions  were  printed  in  the  "  Orders  of  the  Day," 
it  was  necessary  they  should  be  read.  Mr.  Speaker  Brand, 
in  reply,  said  :  "  It  has  been  the  general  practice  for  many 
years  for  hon.  Members,  in  putting  questions,  to  read  these 
questions,  and  it  has  been  generally  found  to  be  a  convenient 
course.  There  is,  however,  no  absolute  rule  on  the  subject." 
From  that  day,  however,  the  reading  of  questions  was 
gradually  discontinued ;  and  questions  were  put  simply 
by  a  reference  to  the  numbers  as  they  appeared  in  the 
"  Orders  of  the  Day."  It  was  only  a  month  later  that  an 
Irish  Member,  named  Finigan,  on  reading  a  question,  was 
received  with  loud  cries  of  "  Order  !  "  The  Speaker  was 
asked  whether  it  was  not  "  a  great  abuse  of  the  rules  of  the 
House  "  for  the  hon.  Member  to  have   read  his  question. 


244     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

"  The  matter  is  not  so  much  one  of  order  as  of  propriety," 
replied  Mr.  Speaker  Brand.  "  I  consider  that  the  hon. 
Member  in  reading  the  question  of  which  he  has  given  notice 
was,  strictly  speaking,  not  out  of  order.  With  regard  to 
the  propriety  of  his  doing  so,  I  give  no  opinion."  This 
was  the  last  occasion  a  question  appearing  in  the  "  Orders 
of  the  Day  "  was  read  on  being  put  to  the  Minister. 

Often  the  real  interest  of  a  question  and  answer  only 
develops  when  the  Minister  has  read  his  typewritten  reply. 
This  arises  from  the  custom  of  putting  what  are  known  as 
supplementary  questions.     "  Arising  out  of  the  right  hon. 

gentleman's  answer,  may  I  ask ?  "  the  Member  begins. 

His  purpose  is  to  extract  further  information  from  the  reluc- 
tant Minister.  If  the  subject  is  controversial,  the  Minister 
is  made  the  target  of  inquisitorial  arrows,  which  he  meets 
or  parries  as  best  he  can.  Mr.  Speaker  Peel  never  attempted 
to  set  up  any  limit  to  the  liberty  of  a  Member — dissatisfied 
with  the  answer  to  the  question  he  had  placed  on"  the  paper 
or,  as  often  happened,  anxious  to  show  off  his  humour 
— to  cross-examine,  as  it  were,  the  Minister  by  means  of 
supplementary  questions. 

I  remember  many  instances  of  Arthur  Balfour,  when 
Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  being  subjected  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  to  a  harassing  fusillade  of  supplementary  questions 
arising  out  of  the  question  on  one  paper,  and  Mr.  Speaker 
Peel  saw  no  occasion  for  interference.  But  a  totally  different 
line  was  taken  by  Mr.  Speaker  Gully.  When  a  Member 
rose  to  put  a  supplementary  question,  Mr.  Speaker  Gully 
interposed  with  a  cry  of  "  Order,  order !  "  and  informed  the 
hon.  gentleman  that  his  question  did  not  arise  out  of  the 
question  on  the  paper.  The  rule  regulating  supplementary 
questions  previously  was  that  they  must  arise  out  of  the 
answer  of  the  Minister.  Some  Members,  notably  the  most 
pertinacious  hecklers  of  the  Government,  chafed  under  this 
unwonted  restraint,  and  occasionally  showed  signs  of  a 
disposition  to  revolt  against  the  Chair,  but  Gully  had  might 
on  his  side,  at  least,  and  could  not  be  trifled  with.  Mr. 
Speaker  Lowther  was  disposed  to  follow  the  precedent  set  by 
Gully.  "  If,"  he  said  on  one  occasion,  "  questions  are  at 
all  important  they  should  be  put  on  the  notice-paper,  and 


A   NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS         245 

if  they  are  not  important,  they  should  not  be  asked." 
Under  Peel  there  was  no  limit  to  the  duration  of  question 
time.  It  was  limited  to  an  hour  under  Lowther,  and  a 
point  he  repeatedly  urged  was  that  supplementary  questions 
were  unfair  to  Members  who  had  questions  on  the  notice- 
paper  because  they  lessened  the  chance  of  these  questions 
being  reached  within  the  time  allowed.  The  answer  to 
such  questions  as  are  not  reached  within  the  hour,  and 
therefore  are  not  read  by  the  Ministers,  are  printed 
with  those  orally  given  by  the  Ministers  in  the  official 
report  of  the  proceedings  of  the  House.  Of  questions 
generally  it  may  be  said  that  while  great  principles  are  fre- 
quently raised  or  indirectly  suggested  by  them,  many  of 
them  are  concerned  with  what  appears  to  be  small  details 
of  administration  interesting  only  to  the  individuals  whom 
they  affect. 


New  Members  are  introduced  after  questions.  Quaint 
indeed  are  the  contradictions  of  parliamentary  procedure. 
Rules  that  are  entirely  different  regulate  the  taking  of  the 
oath  of  allegiance  and  their  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons 
by  M.P.'s  returned  at  the  General  Election,  and  M.P.'s 
who  come  in  at  by-elections.  We  have  seen  on  the  opening 
days  of  Parliament  hundreds  of  men  appear  at  Westminster 
and  being  permitted  to  take  the  oath  and  their  seats  with- 
out any  examination  of  credentials  or  any  evidence  of 
identification.  It  was  quite  possible,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
large  influx  of  new  representatives,  unknown  by  appearance 
to  the  officials,  for  a  "  stranger,"  impudent  enough  and  suffi- 
ciently strong  of  nerve,  to  pass  in  with  the  crowd,  and 
snatch  the  fearful  joy  of  sitting  on  the  sacred  Treasury  Bench 
or  Opposition  Bench — in  front  even  of  the  brass-bound  box 
associated  with  leadership  and  quite  close  to  the  Mace — 
without  anyone  saying  him  nay.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  an  elaborate  ceremony  of  introduction  prescribed 
for  those  returned  at  by-elections.  The  new  Member  has 
to  be  escorted  to  the  Table,  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance 
and  sign  the  Test  Roll,  by  two  full-blown  Members  of  the 
House.     This  custom  has  survived  from  a  remote  past  when, 


246     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

in  order  to  prevent  personation,  two  Members  of  the  House 
were  required  to  identify  the  claimant  of  a  seat  after  a  by- 
election  as  the  person  named  by  the  returning  officer  in  the 
return  to  the  writ.  This  precaution  has  been  unnecessary 
for  many  a  year.  But  such  is  the  reluctance  of  the  House 
of  Commons  to  part  with  any  of  its  historic  ceremonies,  such 
is  its  scrupulous  regard  for  ancient  precedents — no  matter 
how  incongruous  they  may  appear  owing  to  the  changes 
effected  by  time — that  this  formality  is  still  retained  ;  and 
though  a  representative  may  appear  at  the  Bar  of  the 
House  as  the  unanimous  choice  of  a  constituency  of  20,000 
electors,  and  produce  the  certificate  of  the  official  return 
of  his  election,  he  will  not  be  sworn  in  and  permitted  to  take 
his  seat  unless  two  Members  act  as  his  sponsors,  and  so 
declare  that,  as  the  conjurers  say,  there  is  positively  no 
deception. 

There  is  the  famous  case  of  Dr.  Kenealy,  counsel  for 
"  The  Claimant,"  in  the  Tichborne  Trial,  who  was  disbarred 
by  the  Benchers  of  Grey's  Inn,  and  afterwards  returned  for 
Stoke-upon-Trent  at  a  by-election  in  February  1875.  He 
came  to  the  Table  alone.  It  is  not  clearly  established 
whether  he  failed  to  find  two  Members  who  would  accompany 
him  as  sponsors,  or  whether  he  wanted  to  put  to  the  test 
a  custom  which,  in  his  opinion,  was  no  part  of  constitutional 
law.  At  any  rate,  the  Speaker  informed  him  that  as  he 
had  not  been  introduce'd  by  two  Members,  in  accordance 
with  the  ancient  usage  of  the  House — founded  on  a  Standing 
Order  dating  from  1688 — he  could  not  be  sworn  in  or  take 
his  seat.  Kenealy  was,  therefore,  obliged  to  withdraw 
from  the  House.  No  objection  could  be  raised  to  Dr. 
Kenealy's  election.  He  produced  the  certificate  of  his 
return  as  Member  for  Stoke-upon-Trcnt.  Everyone  in  the 
House  knew  that  he  was  the  person  named  in  the  official 
document.  He  laboured  under  no  legal  disability.  Had  he 
been  returned  at  the  General  Election  he  could  have  taken, 
without  question,  the  oath  and  his  seat.  But  coming  in 
at  a  by-election  he  was  not  allowed  to  do  so  solely  because 
of  his  inability  to  comply  with  what,  after  all,  in  this  age  is 
but  a  mere  ceremonial  function.  The  position  was,  indeed, 
absurd.    It  was  impossible  that  a  duly  elected  representative 


A   NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS         247 

of  the  people  could  be  excluded  from  Parliament  for  so 
unsubstantial  a  cause.  Accordingly,  a  special  resolution, 
moved  by  Disraeli,  who  was  then  Prime  Minister,  was 
carried  dispensing  with  the  ancient  introductory  ceremony 
in  the  particular  case  of  Dr.  Kenealy.  In  the  course  of  the 
discussion  John  Bright  and  another  Member  named  Whalley 
intimated  that  they  were  willing  to  walk  up  the  floor  with 
Kenealy  "  out  of  deference,"  as  Bright  put  it,  "  to  the  will 
of  a  large  constituency."  The  Member  for  Stoke-upon-Trent 
once  more  came  to  the  Table  unaccompanied  ;  the  oath  was 
administered  to  him  and  he  signed  the  Roll — the  sole  instance 
of  a  departure  from  a  custom  observed  since  1688.  Kenealy 
then  disappeared  in  the  mass  of  Members  among  whom  he 
could  not  count  two  friends.  "  He  was  in  the  House,  but 
not  of  it,"  said  Joseph  Cowan,  speaking  in  1881.  He  was 
effectually  and  completely  boycotted. 

Sometimes  the  new  M.P.,  returned  at  a  by-election, 
forgets  to  bring  to  the  Table  the  certificate  of  the  return 
to  the  writ.  This  document,  which  is  sent  by  the  Clerk  of 
the  Crown  to  the  Clerk  of  the  House,  is  given  to  the  new 
Member  on  application  at  the  Vote  Office,  in  the  Lobby, 
just  before  the  ceremony  of  initiation,  and  must  be  presented 
to  the  Clerk  of  the  House  at  the  Table  as  evidence  that  he 
is  the  person  named  in  the  return  to  the  writ  as  having  been 
duly  elected,  before  the  oath  can  be  administered  to  him. 
As  a  rule,  therefore,  the  new  Member  takes  care  that  he 
has  this  indispensable  official  paper  in  his  possession  before 
he  starts  to  walk,  between  his  two  sponsors,  from  the  Bar 
to  the  Table.  But  Hardinge  Giffard,  afterwards  Earl 
Halsbury  and  Lord  Chancellor,  when  elected  at  a  by-election 
in  1877,  found  on  reaching  the  Table  that  the  little  blue 
document  was  missing.  In  his  consternation  he  hurriedly 
turned  out  all  the  contents  of  his  pockets,  piling  them 
upon  the  Table — letters,  a  purse,  some  loose  coppers  and 
silver,  a  bunch  of  keys,  a  briar- wood  pipe — all  sorts  of  things 
but  the  essential  certificate.  In  this  case  the  Speaker 
refused  to  accept  any  evidence — not  even  the  testimony  of 
identification  by  the  two  sponsors — but  the  Clerk  of  the 
Crown's  certificate  that  the  man  at  the  Table  was  the  man 
that  had  been    duly  returned    at    the  recent  election  for 


248     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

Launceston.  The  House,  of  course,  was  amused  at  the 
spectacle.  Happily,  one  of  the  Whips  who  went  in  search 
of  the  missing  return  found  it  in  the  hat  of  the  new  Member, 
under  the  cross-bench  below  the  Bar,  where  Hardinge 
Giffard  had  sat  with  his  sponsors  awaiting  the  time  for  the 
Speaker  to  make  the  customary  announcement — "  New 
Members  desirous  of  taking  their  places  will,  please,  come 
to  the  Table." 

Yet  it  would  seem,  after  all,  as  if  the  production  of  the 
certificate  of  the  return  to  the  writ  were  not  absolutely 
necessary  before  a  new  Member,  coming  in  at  a  by-election, 
can  take  his  seat.  On  March  11,  1848,  Mr.  Hames  was 
elected  for  the  Irish  borough  of  Kinsale  ;  on  the  15th  he 
took  the  oath  and  his  seat,  but  it  was  not  until  the  18th 
that  the  return  to  the  writ  was  received  by  the  Clerk  of  the 
Crown.  The  Clerk  of  the  House  of  Commons  had  neglected 
to  ask  for  the  certificate  on  the  appearance  of  the  new 
Member  at  the  Table,  thinking  that  the  formality  might  be 
dispensed  with  as  the  return  to  the  writ  had  not  arrived. 
When  the  mistake  was  discovered  there  was  great  wagging 
of  official  heads.  But  none  of  the  authorities  could  suggest 
a  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  It  was  unprecedented.  The 
Clerk  went  about  haunted  by  visions  of  the  deepest  dungeon 
under  the  moat  of  the  Tower  of  London.  At  last  a  committee 
of  the  House  was  appointed  to  make  inquiries  ;  and  after 
due  investigation  they  reported  that  the  Clerk  had  done  a 
perfectly  sensible  'thing,  however  unwittingly.  They  said 
it  was  true  that  the  return  to  the  writ  had  always  been 
required  by  the  House  as  "  the  best  evidence  of  a  Member's 
title  to  be  sworn."  "  Nevertheless,"  continued  they,  "  the 
absence  of  that  proof  cannot  affect  the  validity  of  the  election, 
nor  the  right  of  a  person  duly  elected  to  be  held  a  Member 
of  the  House."  Truly,  a  most  proper  decision  !  Still, 
the  committee  recommended  a  strict  adherence  to  the 
practice  of  requiring  the  production  of  the  document.  This 
much,  at  least,  can  be  said  for  it,  that  it  is  a  picturesque 
detail  in  the  initiation  of  a  new  Member  of  the  House  of 
Commons. 

The  House  then  comes  to  the  real  business  of  the  sitting. 
At  this  stage  of  the  proceedings  leave  may  be  asked  for  to 


A   NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS         249 

move  the  adjournment  of  the  House,  but,  even  if  it  be  granted, 
action  is  not  immediately  taken.  The  objeet  of  sueh  a 
motion  is  to  obtain  from  the  Government  an  explanation 
of  some  act  of  commission  or  omission  on  their  part  ;  of 
something  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Opposition  or  any 
other  section  of  the  House,  they  have  wrongly  done  or 
left  undone.  The  matter  complained  of  must  be — as  the 
Standing  Order  says — "  a  definite  matter  of  urgent  public 
importance  "  in  the  opinion  of  the  Speaker,  and  the  motion 
must  also  have  the  concurrence  of  at  least  forty  members. 
Therefore,  when  a  Member  rises  after  questions  and  asks 
leave  to  move  the  adjournment  of  the  House,  stating  at 
the  same  time  the  object  he  has  in  view,  the  Speaker,  should 
he  consider  the  subject  definite  and  urgent,  asks  whether 
the  hon.  Member  is  supported  b}'-  forty  Members.  Immedi- 
ately the  Members  in  favour  of  the  motion  rise  in  their 
places,  and  if  they  muster  forty,  leave  is  granted,  but  the 
debate  stands  over  until  a  quarter  past  eight  o'clock.  Forty 
members  make  a  quorum,  without  which  no  business  can  be 
done.  If  leave  is  not  given  because  it  lacks  the  necessary 
support,  the  Member  who  asks  for  it  may  challenge  a  division 
in  the  hope  of  winning  in  the  lobbies,  or  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  a  record  of  those  for  and  against  his  motion.  I 
remember  in  the  session  of  1912  when  George  Lansbury 
the  Socialist  startled  everyone  by  claiming  that  a  division 
should  be  taken  on  a  motion  for  the  adjournment,  in  support 
of  which  only  38  Members  had  risen.  The  Speaker,  Mr. 
Lowther,  had  recourse  to  the  little  book  containing  the 
rules  of  the  House  Avhich  he  always  has  by  him  on  the 
arm  of  the  Chair,  for  this  was  probably  the  first  time  that 
such  a  request  had  been  made,  and  satisfied  himself  that 
Lansbury  was  within  his  rights.  The  motion  was  lost  by 
115  against  86. 

4 

This  being  disposed  of,  the  Speaker  rises  and  says  : 
"  The  Clerk  will  now  proceed  to  read  the  Orders  of  the 
Day,"  and  the  Clerk,  with  a  copy  of  the  Order  Paper  in  his 
hand,  reads  the  title  of  the  first  of  the  list  of  Bills  down  for 
consideration.     It  mav  be  the  second  reading  or  the  third 


250    THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

reading  stage,  at  which,  on  all  great  Bills,  there  is  usually 
a  big  debate.  Disraeli  is  said  to  have  described  the  House 
of  Commons  as  a  dull  place,  with  some  great  moments.  In 
my  opinion,  it  would  be  difficult  for  the  House  of  Commons 
ever  to  be  downright  dull.  Its  great  moments  are,  indeed, 
many.  The  variety  and  vitality  of  the  questions  at  issue 
there  and  its  personalities  secure  it  against  tediousness.  For 
Disraeli — as  for  most  of  those  who  have  once  breathed  its 
intoxicating  atmosphere — it  always  had  an  absorbing  charm. 
Joseph  Gilles  Biggar,  one  of  the  best  known  of  the  Irish 
Party,  lived  in  the  House  and  for  the  House.  Outside  it 
he  had  no  interest  or  amusement.  I  happened  to  be  talking 
to  him  in  the  Lobby  during  a  sitting  that  was  supposed 
to  be  dull,  when  a  colleague  asked  him  whether  he  might 
go  to  a  theatre  for  the  evening.  Biggar  was  then  the 
Chief  Whip  of  the  Nationalist  Party,  and  a  stern  martinet. 
"  Theatre  !  "  he  exclaimed  contemptuously.  "  This  is  better 
than  a  play.  Mister.  It  is  all  real  here."  Yet  he  was 
the  man  who,  by  the  invention  of  obstruction,  and  its 
use,  did  most  violence  to  its  time-honoured  and  dearly 
cherished  customs.  The  House  of  Commons  is,  indeed,  a 
most  alluring  place.  It  has  an  interest  of  the  highest 
dramatic  intensity  on  the  occasion  of  a  big  debate  relating 
to  the  predominant  political  question  of  the  day,  which 
deeply  stirs  Party  passions  and  prejudices,  and  brings  down 
into  the  arena  of  the  floor  the  great  chiefs  to  fight  for 
principle  with  the  keen  and  subtle  weapon  of  the  tongue. 

"  Mr.  Speaker."  So  begins  each  Member  who  rises  to 
address  the  House.  Of  all  the  speakers  in  the  Chamber, 
Mr.  Speaker  speaks  seldomest,  and  in  the  fewest  words. 
The  Speaker  sits  in  his  high  canopied  Chair,  not  to  talk 
but  to  listen  to  talkers.  Hours  may  pass,  and  "  Order, 
order,"  may  be  the  only  words  spoken  by  Mr.  Speaker.  He 
guides  the  deliberations  of  the  House.  He  names  the  Member 
who  is  to  continue  the  debate.  This  is  not  a  matter  simply 
of  "  catching  the  Speaker's  eye,"  as  it  is  popularly  called. 
The  Speaker  does  not  always  name  the  Member  upon  whom 
his  eye  may  first  rest.  On  both  sides  of  the  House  Members 
jump  to  their  feet,  eager  to  join  in  the  debate,  each  straining 
forward,  or  shaking  his  notes  to  attract  the  attention  of 


A   NIGHT   IN   THE   COMMONS        251 

Mr.  Speaker.  The  Speaker's  selection  of  one  from  among 
these  competitors  to  fix  liis  wandering  eye  is  careful  and 
deliberate.  If  an  opponent  of  the  Bill  has  just  spoken,  it 
is  almost  certain  that  a  supporter  will  be  selected  to  follow. 
The  aim  of  the  Speaker  is  to  secure  that,  as  far  as  possible, 
every  phase  of  opinion  shall  find  expression.  In  this  he 
is  assisted  by  lists  given  to  him  beforehand  by  the  Whips 
of  the  different  Parties,  containing  the  names  of  their  chief 
spokesmen  in  the  debate.  Therefore  it  is  that  Members 
on  opposite  sides  follow  each  other  alternately,  the  only 
exception  to  the  rule  being  that  should  a  Minister,  or  one 
of  the  leading  occupants  of  the  Front  Opposition  Bench, 
intervene  at  any  moment,  he  has  the  right,  more  or  less 
prescriptive,  to  be  called  on  by  the  Speaker. 

The  Speaker  follows  the  flow  of  discursive  talk  with  what 
appears  to  be  the  most  absorbing  interest.  Indeed,  it  is 
into  his  ears  that  the  Member  "  in  possession  of  the  House  " 
— to  use  the  traditional  phrase — pours  all  his  views  and 
prognostications,  all  his  fears  and  expectations.  It  is,  "Now, 
Mr.  Speaker,  let  me  say,"  or  "  With  great  resj^ect,  Mr. 
Speaker,  I  submit."  Accordingly,  the  Speaker  may  not 
betake  himself,  even  for  a  little  while,  to  his  own  select 
and  profitable  thoughts.  He  must  always  be  seized  of 
the  drift  of  the  argument  of  the  Member  who  is  addressing 
him.  At  any  moment  he  may  be  called  upon  to  rule  a  point 
of  order.  His  faculties  must  always  be  wide  awake.  At 
any  moment  some  emergency  may  arise,  without  the  least 
forewarning,  when  all  his  authority,  tact,  and  common 
sense  will  be  needed. 

It  is  said  there  are  Judges  of  the  High  Court  who  can 
sleep  during  the  speeches  of  counsel,  and  wake  up  at  the 
moment  that  the  slumberous  presentation  of  argument  is 
concluded.  The  atmosphere  of  the  House  of  Commons  is 
often  drowsy.  Members  may  be  seen  asleep  on  the  benches 
at  all  hours.  Yet  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  there  is  only 
one  instance  on  record  of  a  Speaker— impassive  figure  though 
he  be,  in  a  big  wig  and  a  flowing  gown,  reclining  in  a  large 
Chair  under  a  spreading  canopy — having  been  caught  nodding 
or  napping.  It  was  to  Shaw  Lefevre,  the  only  Speaker  over 
whom  tired  Nature  asserted  itself,  and  whose  weighted  lids, 


252     THE   PAGEANT   OF   PARLIAMENT 

despite    his    desperate     resistance,    were    finally    closed    in 
slumber,  that  Mackworth  Praed  addressed  these  lines  : 

Sleep,  Mr.  Speaker  ;  it's  only  fair, 

If  you  don't  in  your  bed,  you  should  in  your  Chair, 

Longer  and  longer  still  they  grow, 

Tory  and  Radical,  Aye  and  No. 

Talking  by  night  and  talking  by  day  ; 

Sleep,  Mr.  Speaker,  sleep  while  you  may. 


End  Vol.  I. 


Printed  in  Great  Britain  by 

UNWIN  BB0THER9,  LIMITED 
WOKING  AND  LONDON 


UNWIN'S  "CHATS" 

CJT7  T>  TXT  C  PRACTICAL  HANDBOOKS 
OrLlVlrLO      FOR     collectors 

Most  people  nowadays  are  collectors  in  a  small 
way  of  Autographs,  China,  Furniture,  Prints, 
Miniatures,  or  Silver,  and  would  take  up  these 
fascinating  hobbies  more  extensively,  and  collect 
with  profit,  if  they  had  a  knowledge  of  the  subject. 

It  is  to  the  beginner  and  would-be  collector  that 
Unwin's  "  Chats  "  Series  of  practical  handbooks 
especially  appeal.  They  are  the  recognized  stan- 
dard guides  to  collecting,  each  volume  being  the 
work  of  an  expert   on  the  subject  dealt  with. 

Each  volume  is  profusely  illustrated  with  carefully- 
chosen  specimens  of  the  various  styles  and  periods. 

Full  Indices,  Bibliographies,  and  Lists  of  Sale  Prices 
at  Public  Auctions  are  included  in  the  volumes. 

"  As  this  is  the  age  of  collectors,  so  it  is  the  age  of  books  for  their  guidanoa. 
Mr.  Unwin's  series  of  books  for  collectors  now  includes  twenty-one 
voliimes,  and  if  bargains  are  missed  it  is  certainly  not  the  fault  of  the 
various  writers."  The  Nation. 

HOW     TO     COLLECT    WITH    PROFIT 

is  the  keynote  of  the  series.  The  phenomenal  prices  realized  at 
auction  sales  are  obtained  by  those  who  have  collected  wisely. 
Prices  are  still  rising,  and  those  who  have  the  knowledge  are  buying 
for  future  rises.  Ask  always  for  and  see  that  you  get  UNWIN'S 
"Chats"    Series — the   standard   popular  handbooks   on  collecting. 

THE  "CHATS"  SERIES  IS  ON  SALE  AT  ALL  BOOKSELLERS 
THROUGHOUT  THE  WORLD  AND  IS  PUBLISHED  BY 
T.FISHER  UNWIN   LTD..  1  ADELPHI    TERRACE.    LONDON.   WC.2 


UNWIN'S     "CHATS"     SERIES 

LIST    OF    VOLUMES 

Chats  on  English  China.  By  Arthur  Hayden.  Illus- 
trated with  reproductions  of  156  marks  and  89  specimens 
of  china.     Cloth,  15s.  net.  Fourth  Edition, 

This  is  the  standard  work  on  the  subject.  The  volume 
will  enable  the  possessors  of  old  china  to  determine 
the  factories  at  which  their  ware  was  produced. 
''  It  gives  in  a  few  chapters  just  what  the  beginner  wants  to  know 
about  the  principal  varieties  of  English  ware.  We  can  warmly 
commend  the  book  to  the  china  collector."  Pall  Mall  Oazeite, 

"  So  simply  yet  so  thoroughly  written,  that  it  is  a  sage  guide  to  the 
veriest  tyro  in  china  collecting."  Bookman, 

Chats  on  Old  Furniture.  By  Arthur  Hayden.  With 
a  coloured  frontispiece  and  104  other  Illustrations.  Cloth, 
I2s.  6d.  net.      Fourth  Edition.  Eleventh  Impression. 

"  The  hints  to  collectors  are  the  best  and  clearest  we  have  seen  ;  so 
that  altogether  this  is  a  model  book  of  its  kind."  Athenceum. 

"  A  fully  illustrated  practical  guide  for  collectors."  The  Times. 

"  Mr.  Hayden  has  worked  at  his  subject  on  systematic  lines,  and 
has  made  his  book  what  it  purports  to  be — a  practical  guide  for  the 
collector."  The  Saturday  Review. 

Chats  on  Old  Prints.  How  to  Collect  and  Identify. 
By  Arthur  Hayden.  With  a  coloured  frontispiece  and 
72  full-page  plates.     Cloth,  15s.  net.  Sixth  Impression. 

Every  branch  of  the  subject  is  carefully  and  explicitly 
handled  in  this  book,  and  valuable  information  as  to 
technical  processes  and  identification  of  prints  is  given. 
"  If  there  is  a  better  book  of  its  kind  on  print  collecting  we  have  not 
yet  come  across  it."  Daily  Graphic. 

*'  A  very  useful  handbook  for  beginners,  intended  to  help  any  reader 
of  artistic  tastes,  but  very  moderate  means,  to  collect  to  good  pur- 
pose." The  Times, 

Chats  on  Costume.  By  G.  Woolliscroft  Rhead,  R.E. 
With  a  coloured  frontispiece  and  117  other  Illustrations. 
Cloth,  10s.  6d.  net.  Second  Impression. 

A  practical  guide  to  historic  dress.  "  Clothes "  is 
a  subject  that  has  been  neglected  by  collectors, 
and  this  book  will  be  a  useful  guide  to  those  who 
desire  to  repair  that  neglect  by  forming  a  collection. 
"  A  book  that  is  at  once  the  work  of  an  authority  on  the  subject 
of  costumes,  and  one  that  helps  to  enlarge  our  range  of  selec- 
tion." Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

T.   FISHER  UNWIN   LTD..   1  ADELPHI    TERRACE.   LONDON.   W.C.2 


UNWIN'S     "CHATS"     SERIES 

Chats  on  Old  Miniatures.  By  J.  J.  Foster,  F.S.A. 
With  a  coloured  frontispiece  and  116  other  Illustra- 
tions. Cloth,  6s.  net. 

This  book  presents  in  a  concise  and  popular  form  a  variety 
of  valuable  information  on  the  collection  and  preservation 
of  miniatures,  on  the  leading  English  and  French  artists, 
and    on    the    specimens    exhibited    in    public     galleries. 

"  Mr.  Foster  is  truly  a  guide,  philosopher  and  friend.  He  tells  us 
not  only  how  to  judge  and  how  to  buy  miniatures,  but  how  to  take 
proper  care  of  them.  .  .  .  The  splendid  photographs  by  which  the 
book  is  enriched  adds  in  a  great  measure  to  its  attractiveness  and 
utility."  Aberdeen  Free  Presa. 

Chats  on  Old  Lace  and  Needlework.  By  Mrs.  Lowes. 
With  a  frontispiece  and  74  other  Illustrations.  Cloth, 
10s.  6d.  net.  Third  Impression. 

Written  by  an  expert  and  enthusiast  in  these  most 
interesting  branches  of  art.  The  low  price  at  which 
the  work  is  issued  is  exceptional  in  dealing  with 
these  subjects,  and  it  is  remarkable  in  view  of  the 
technical  knowledge  displayed  and  the  many  photo- 
graphic illustrations  which  practically  interleave  the  book. 

"  In  commendable,  clear  and  concise  stj'le  Mrs.  Lowes  explains  the 
technical  features  distinguishing  each  example,  making  the  book  the 
utmost  value  in  identifying  samples  of  old  lace." — TFejfdon's  Ladies^  Jour. 


Chats  on  Oriental  China.  By  J.  F.  Blacker.  With 
a  coloured  frontispiece  and  70  other  Illustratidns.  Cloth, 
10s.  6d.  net.  Fourth  Impression. 

Will  be  of  the  utmost  service  to  collectors  and  to  all  who 
may  have  old  Chinese  and  Japanese  porcelain  in  their 
possession.  It  deals  with  oriental  china  from  the  various 
standpoints  of  history,  technique,  age,  marks  and  values, 
and    is    richly    illustrated    with    admirable    reproductions. 

"A  treatise  that  is  so  informing  and  comprehensive  that  it  commanda 
the  prompt  recognisation  of  all  who  value  the  choice  productions  of 
the  oriental  artists.  .  .  .  The  illustrations  are  numerous  and  invalu- 
able to  the  attainment  of  expert  knowledge,  and  the  result  is  a  hand- 
book that  is  as  indispensable  as  it  is  unique."         Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN   LTD..   1   ADELPHI   TERRACE.    LONDON.  W.C.  2 


UNWIN'S     "CHATS"     SERIES 

Chats  on  English  Earthenware.  A  companion  volume 
to  "  Chats  on  English  China."  By  Arthur  Hayden. 
With  a  coloured  frontispiece,  150  Illustrations  and  tables 
of  over  200  illustrated  marks.  Cloth, 

10s.  6d.  net.  Third  Impression. 

"  To  the  ever-increasing  number  of  collectors  who  are  taking 
an  interest  in  old  English  pottery  .  .  .  will  be  found  one  of 
the  most  delightful,  as  it  is  a  practical  work  on  a  fascinating 
subject."  Hearth  and  Home. 

"  Here  we  have  a  handbook,  written  by  a  well-known  authority, 
which  gives  in  the  concisest  possible  form  all  the  information  that 
the  beginner  in  earthenware  collecting  is  likely  to  need.  Moreover, 
it  contains  one  or  two  features  that  are  not  usually  found  in  the 
multifarious   '  guides  '   that  are  produced  to-day."  Nation. 

Chats  on  Autographs.  By  A.  M.  Broadley.  With 
180  Illustrations.  Cloth,  6s.  net. 

"  Being  an  expert  collector,  Mr.  Broadley  not  only  discourses  on 
the  kinds  of  autograph  he  owns,  but  gives  some  excellent  cautionary 
advice  and  a  valuable  '  caveat  emptor  '  chapter  for  the  benefit  of 
other  collectors."  Westminster  Gazette. 

"  It  is  assuredly  the  best  work  of  the  kind  yet  given  to  the  public  ; 
and  supplies  the  intending  collector  with  the  various  sources  of  infor- 
mation necessary  to  his  equipment."  Manchester  Guardian. 

Chats  on  Old  Pewter.  By  H.  J.  L.  J.  Masse,  M.A.  With 
52  half-tone  and  numerous  other  Illustrations.  Cloth, 
10s.  6d.  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  It  is  a  remarkably  thorough  and  well-arranged  guide  to  the  subject, 
supplied  with  useful  illustrations  and  with  lists  of  pewterera  and  of 
their  marks  so  complete  as  to  make  it  a  very  complete  and  satis- 
factory book  of  reference."  Manchester  Guardian. 
"  Before  setting  out  to  collect  old  pewter  it  would  be  as  well  to  read 
Mr.  Mass^'s  book,  which  is  exhaustive  in  its  information  and  its 
lists  of  pewterers,  analytical  index,  and  historical  and  technical 
chapters."  Spectator. 

Chats  on  Postage  Stamps.  By  Fred  J.  Melville. 
With  57  half-tone  and  17  line  Illustrations.  Cloth, 

10s.  6d.  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  The  whole  book,  with  its  numerous  illustrations  of  excellent  quality, 
is  a  vade  mecum  for  stamp  collectors,  even  though  their  efforts  may 
be  but  modest  ;  we  congratulate  Mr.  Melville  on  a  remarkably  good 
guide,  which  makes  fascinating  reading."  Academy, 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Melville's  book  fills  a  void.  There  is 
nothing  exactly  like  it.  Agreeably  written  in  a  popular  style  and 
adequately  illustrated,  it  is  certainly  one  of  the  best  guides  to  phila- 
telic knowledge  that  have  yet  been  published."  World. 

T.  FISHER   UNWIN   LTD..    1   ADELPHI   TERRACE.   LONDON.  W.C.S 


UNWIN'S     "CHATS"      SERIES 

Chats    on    Old    Jewellery    and    Trinkets.     By    MacIver 

Percival.     With  nearly  300  Illustrations.     Cloth,  6s.  net. 

"  The  book  is  very  thorough,  dealing  as  it  does  with  classic,  antique 
and  modern  ornaments  ;  with  gold,  silver,  steel  and  pinchbeck  ;  with 
the  precious  stones,  the  commoner  stones  and  imitation." — Outlook. 
"  '  Chats  on  Old  Jewellery  and  Trinkets  '  is  a  book  which  will  enable 
every  woman  to  turn  over  her  jewel-caee  with  a  fresh  interest  and 
a  new  intelligence  ;  a  practical  guide  for  the  himable  but  anxious 
collector.  ...  A  good  glossary  of  technicalities  and  many  excel- 
lent illustrations  complete  a  valuable  contribution  to  collector's 
lore."  Illustrated  London  News. 

Chats  on  Cottage  and  Farmhouse  Furniture.  A  com- 
panion volume  to  "  Chats  on  Old  Furniture."  By  Arthur 
Hayden.  With  a  coloured  frontispiece  and  75  other 
Illustrations.  Cloth,  15s.  net.  Third  Impression. 

"  One  gets  very  much  for  one's  money  in  this  book.  Seventy-three 
full-page  illustrations  in  half-tone  embellish  a  letterpress  which  is 
replete  with  wise  description  and  valuable  hints."  Vanity  Fair. 

"  Mr.  Hayden's  book  is  a  guide  to  all  sorts  of  desirable  and  simple 
furniture,  from  Stuart  to  Georgian,  and  it  is  a  delight  to  read  as  well 
as  a  sure  help  to  selection."  Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"  Mr.  Hayden  writes  lucidly  and  is  careful  and  accurate  in  his  state- 
ments ;  while  the  advice  he  gives  to  collectors  is  both  sound  and 
reasonable."  Westminster  Gazette. 

Chats  on  Old  Coins.  By  Fred  W.  Burgess.  With  a 
coloured  frontispiece  and  258  other  Illustrations.  Cloth, 
10s.  6d.  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  A  most  useful  and  instructive  book  .  .  .  will  prove  a  boon  to  the 
intending  collector  of  old  coins  and  tokens,  and  full  of  interest  to 
every  collector.  As  was  to  be  expected  of  any  voliime  of  this  series, 
the  illustrations  are  numerous  and  good,  and  greatly  assist  the  reader 
to  grasp  the  essentials  of  the  author's  descriptions."  Outlook. 

"  The  author  has  not  only  produced  '  a  practical  guide  for  the  col- 
lector '  but  a  handy  book  of  reference  for  all.  The  vohune  is  wonder- 
fully cheap."  Notes  and  Queries. 

Chats  on  Old  Copper  and  Brass.  By  Fred  W. 
Burgess.  With  a  coloured  frontispiece  and  86  other 
Illustrations.  Cloth,  6s.  net. 

"  Mr.  F.  W.  Burgess  is  an  expert  on  old  copper  and  bronze,  and  in  hia 
book  there  is  little  information  lacking  which  the  most  ardent 
collector  might  want."  The  Observer. 

"  Italian  bronzes,  African  charms,  Chinese  and  Japanese  enamels, 
bells,  mortars,  Indian  idols,  dials,  candlesticks,  and  snuff  boxes, 
all  come  in  for  their  share  of  attention,  and  the  reader  who  has 
mastered  Mr.  Burgess's  pages  can  face  his  rival  in  the  auction- 
room  or  the  dealer  in  his  shop  with  little  fear  of  sufiering  by  the 
transaction."  The  Nation. 

T.   FISHER  UNWIN   LTD..    1   ADELPHI    TERRACE.  LONDON,  W.C.2 


UNWIN'S      "CHATS"     SERIES 

Chats  on  Household  Curios.  By  Fred  W.  Burgess. 
With  94  Illustrations.  Cloth,  6s.  net. 

"  Mr.  Burgess  gives  much  information  about  such  attractive  antiques 
as  old  glass  and  enamels,  old  leather  work,  old  clocks  and  watches, 
old  pipes,  old  seals,  musical  instruments,  and  even  old  samplers  and 
children's  toys.  The  book  is,  in  short,  an  excellent  and  compre- 
hensive guide  for  what  one  may  call  the  general  collector,  that  is, 
the  collector  who  does  not  confine  himself  to  one  class  of  antique, 
but  buys  whatever  he  comes  across  in  the  curio  line,  provided  that 
it  is  interesting  and  at  moderate  price."  Aberdeen  Free  Press. 

Chats  on  Japanese  Prints.  By  Arthur  Davison 
FiCKE.  With  a  coloured  frontispiece  and  56  Illustra- 
tions. Cloth,  6s.  net.  Third  Impression. 
"  Mr.  Ficke  writes  with  the  knowledge  of  the  expert,  and  his  history 
of  Japanese  printing  from  very  early  times  and  his  criticism  of  the 
artists'  work  are  wonderfully  interesting."  Tatler. 
"  This  is  one  of  the  most  dehghtful  and  notable  members  of  an 
attractive  series.  ...  A  beginner  who  shall  have  mastered  and  made 
thoroughly  his  own  the  beauty  of  line  and  the  various  subtlety  and  bold- 
ness of  linear  composition  displayed  in  these  sixty  and  odd  photographs 
will  have  no  mean  foundation  for  further  study." — Notes  and  Queries. 

Chats  on  Old  Clocks.  By  Arthur  Hayden.  With  a 
frontispiece  and  80  Illustrations.  2nd  Ed.  Cloth,  10s.  6d.  net. 
"  A  practical  handbook  dealing  with  the  examples  of  old  clocks  likely 
to  come  under  the  observation  of  the  collector.  Charmingly  written 
and  illustrated."  Outlook. 

"  One  specially  useful  feature  of  the  work  is  the  prominence  Mr. 
Hayden  has  given  to  the  makers  of  clocks,  dealing  not  only  with 
those  of  London,  but  also  those  of  the  leading  provincial  towns.  The 
lists  he  gives  of  the  latter  are  highly  valuable,  as  they  are  not  to  be 
found  in  any  similar  book.  The  volume  is,  as  usual  with  this  series, 
profusely  illustrated,  and  may  be  recommended  as  a  highly  interesting 
and  useful  general  guide  to  collectors  of  clocks."         The  Connoisseur. 

Chats   on  Old  Silver.      By   Arthur   Hayden.     With   a 

frontispiece,  99  full-page  Illustrations,  and  illustrated 
table  of  marks.  Cloth,  10s.  6d.  net.  Third  Impression. 
"  Mr.  Hayden's  '  Chats  on  Old  Silver  '  deals  very  thoroughly  with  a 
popular  branch  of  collecting.  There  are  a  hundred  full-page  illus- 
trations together  with  illustrated  tables  and  charts,  and  the  student 
of  this  book  can  wander  round  the  old  curiosity  shops  of  these  islands 
with  a  valuable  equipment  of  knowledge.  .  .  .  Altogether  we  have 
here  a  well-written  summary  of  everything  that  one  could  wish  to 
know  about  this  branch  of  collecting."  The  Sphere. 

"  The  information  it  gives  will  be  of  exceptional  value  at  this  time, 
when  so  many  families  will  be  forced  to  part  with  their  treasures — 
and  old  silver  is  among  the  most  precious  possessions  of  the  present 
day."  Morning  Post. 

T    FISHER  UNWIN  LTD..   1   ADELPHI   TERRACE.    LONDON.  W.C.2 


UNWIN'S     "CHATS"     SERIES 

Chats  on  Military  Curios.  By  Stanley  C.  Johnson, 
M.A.,  D.Sc.  With  a  coloured  frontispiece  and  79  other 
Illustrations.  Cloth,  6s.  net. 

*'  Mr.  Johnson  in  this  book  describes  many  of  the  articles  a  collector 
should  be  on  the  look  out  for,  giving  short  but  informative  notes  on 
medals,  helmet  and  cap  badges,  tunic  buttons,  armour,  weapons  of 
all  kinds,  medallions,  autographs,  original  documents  relating  to 
Army  work,  military  pictures  and  prints,  newspaper  cuttings,  obso- 
lete imiforms,  crests,  stamps,  postmarks,  memorial  brasses,  money 
and  curios  made  by  prisoners  of  war,  while  there  is  also  an  excellent 
biography  on  the  subject.  The  author  has,  indeed,  presented  the 
reader  with  a  capital  working  handbook,  which  should  prove  a  friendly 
and  reliable  gxiide  when  he  goes  collecting."  Field. 


Chats  on  Royal  Copenhagen  Porcelain.  By  Arthur 
Hayden.  With  a  frontispiece,  56  full-page  Illustrations 
and  illustrated  tables  of  marks.  Cloth,  10s.  6d.  net. 

"  This  very  beautiful  and  very  valuable  book  will  be  eagerly  wel- 
comed by  lovers  of  porcelain.  .  .  .  Mr.  Hayden  describes  with  great 
skill  and  preciseness  all  the  quality  and  beauty  of  technique  in  which 
this  porcelain  excels  ;  he  loves  it  and  understands  it,  and  the  examples 
he  has  chosen  as  illustrations  are  a  valuable  supplement  to  his 
descriptions."  Bookman. 

Chats  on  Old  Sheffield  Plate.  By  Arthur  Hayden. 
With  frontispiece  and  58  full-page  Illustrations,  together 
with  makers'  marks.  Cloth,  21s.  net. 

Old  plated  ware  has,  by  reason  of  its  artistic  excellence 
and  its  technique,  deservedly  won  favour  with  collectors. 
The  art  of  making  plated  ware,  which  originated  at  Sheffield 
(hence  the  name  "  Sheffield  plate "),  was  continued  at 
Birmingham  and  London,  where  a  considerable  amount 
of  "  old  Sheffield  plate  "  was  made,  in  the  manner  of  its 
first  inventors,  by  welding  sheets  of  silver  upon  copper. 
The  manufacture  lasted  roughly  a  hundred  years.  Its 
best  period  was  from  1776  (American  Declaration  of 
Independence)  to  1830  (Accession  of  William  IV).  The 
author  shows  reasons  why  this  old  Sheffield  plate  should 
be  collected,  and  the  volume  is  illustrated  with  many 
examples  giving  various  styles  and  the  development  of  the 
art,    together    with    makers'    marks.       Candlesticks    and 

T.    FISHER  UNWIN  LTD..    1   ADELPHI  TERRACE.   LONDON.  W.C.  2 


UNWIN'S      "CHATS"     SERIES 

candelabra,  tea-caddies,  sugar-baskets,  salt-cellars,  tea- 
pots, coffee-pots,  salvers,  spoons,  and  many  other  articles 
shown  and  described  in  the  volume  indicate  the  exquisite 
craftsmanship  of  the  best  period.  The  work  stands  as  a 
companion  volume  to  the  author's  "  Chats  on  Old  Silver," 
the  standard  practical  guide  to  old  English  silver  collecting. 

Bye  Paths  in  Curio  Collecting.  By  Arthur  Hayden, 
Author  of  "  Chats  on  Old  Silver,"  etc.  With  a  frontis- 
piece and  72  full-page  Illustrations.  Cloth, 
21s.   net.                                                       Second  Impression. 

"  Every  collector  knows  the  name  of  Mr.  Arthur  Hayden,  and  knows 
him  for  a  wise  counsellor.  Upon  old  furniture,  old  china,  old  pottery, 
and  old  prints  there  is  no  more  knowing  judge  in  the  country  ;  and 
in  his  latest  volume  he  supplies  a  notable  need,  in  the  shape  of  a  vade- 
mecum  exploring  some  of  the  nondescript  and  little  traversed  bye- 
paths  of  the  collector.  There  was  never  a  time  when  the  amateur 
of  the  antique  stood  more  in  need  of  a  competent  guide.  .  .  . 
The  man  who  wishes  to  avoid  the  pitfalls  of  the  fraudulent  will 
find  much  salutary  advice  in  Mr.  Hayden's  gossipy  pages. 
There  are  chests,  for  example,  a  fruitful  field  for  reproduction. 
Mr.  Hayden  gives  photographs  of  many  exquisite  examples.  There 
is  a  marriage  coffer  of  the  sixteenth  century,  decorated  with  carved 
figures  of  Cupid  and  Hymen,  a  fine  Gothic  chest  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, with  rich  foliated  decorations  ;  and  a  superb  livery  cupboard 
from  Haddon  Hall.  From  Flanders  come  steel  coffers,  with  a  lock 
of  four  bolts,  the  heavy  sides  strongly  braized  together.  Then  thero 
are  snuffers,  with  and  without  trays,  tinder-boxes,  snuff  graters,  and 
metal  tobacco  stoppers.  The  most  fascinating  designs  are  shown, 
with  squirrels,  dogs,  and  quaint  human  figures  at  the  summit.  Fans 
and   playing-cards  provide   another   attractive  section. 

Chicken-skin,  delicate,  white. 

Painted  by  Carlo  van  Loo. 
The  fan  has  always  been  an  object  of  the  collector's  passion,  because 
of  the  grace  of  the  article  and  its  beauty  as  a  display.  Mr.  Hayden 
shows  a  particularly  beautiful  one,  with  designs  after  Fragonard, 
the  sticks  of  ivory  with  jewelled  studs.  Then  there  are  watch-stands, 
a  little  baroque  in  design,  and  table-bells,  some  of  them  shaped  as 
female  figures  with  spreading  skirts,  old  toys  and  picture-books,  and, 
of  course,  cradles,  of  which  every  English  farm-house  once  boasted 
its  local  variety.  Altogether  the  book  abounds  in  inviting  pictures 
and  curious  information,  and  is  certain  of  a  large,  appreciative 
public."  Daily  Telegraph. 

The  Fan  Book :  Including  Special  Chapters  on  European 
Fans  of  the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries.  By 
MacIver  Percival,  author  of  "  Chats  on  Old  Jewellery  and 
Trinkets."     Fully  Illustrated.        Demy  8vo,  cloth,  21s.  net. 

T     FISHER   UNWIN   LTD.,    1   ADELPHI  TERRACE.   LONDON.  W.C  2 


POETRY    THAT 

X     JlI    XV   A    JL   L^  ^  A  COLLECTION  OF 

SONGS  FROM  OVERSEAS  THAT  THRILL  WITH  VIVID 
DESCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  ADVENTUROUS  LIFE  IN  THE 
FROZEN  NORTH,  IN  THE  OUTPOSTS  OF  CIVILIZATION 
AND    OF    THE    HEROISM    OF    SOLDIERS    IN    BATTLE 


SONGS  OF  A  SOURDOUGH.  By  Robert  W.  Service. 
Crown    8vo.     Cloth,    4/6    net.  Fortieth  Impression. 

Also  a  Pocket  edition.  Fcap.  8vo,  cloth,  4/6  net. 

"  Of  the  Canadian  disciples  of  Kipling,  by  far  the  best  is  R.  W.  Service. 
His  '  Songs  of  a  Sourdough  '  have  run  through  many  editions.  Much 
of  his  verse  has  a  touch  of  real  originality,  conveying  as  it  does  a  just 
impression  of  the  something  evil  and  askew  in  the  strange,  uncouth 
wilderness  of  the  High  North."  The  Times. 

"Mr.  Service  has  got  nearer  to  the  heart  of  the  old-time  place  miner 
than  any  other  verse -maker  in  all  the  length  and  height  of  the 
Dominion.  .  .  .  He  certainly  sees  the  Northern  Wilderness  through 
th«  eyes  of  the  man  into  whose  soul  it  is  entered."  Morning  Post. 

RHYMES  OF  A  RED-CROSS  MAN.  By  Robert  W. 
Service.  Crown  8vo.  Cloth,  4/6  net.  Sixth  Impression. 
Also  a  Pocket  edition.  Fcap.  8vo,  cloth,  4/6  net. 

"  It  is  the  great  merit  of  Mr.  Service's  verses  that  they  are  literally 
alive  with  the  stress  and  joy  and  agony  and  hardship  that  make  up 
life  out  in  the  battle  zone.  He  has  never  written  better  than  in  thii 
book,  and  that  is  sajang  a  great  deal."  Bookman. 

"Mr.  Service  has  painted  for  us  the  unutterable  tragedy  of  the  war,  the 
horror,  the  waste,  and  the  suffering,  but  side  by  side  with  that  he 
has  set  the  heroism,  the  endurance,  the  unfailing  cheerfulness  and  the 
unquenchable  laughter."  Scots  Pictorial, 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London.  W.C.2 


POETRY    THAT    T  H  R  I  L  L  S-con<d. 

BALLADS      OF  A      CHEECHAKO.     By  Robert    W. 

Service.     Crown  8vo.    Cloth,  4/6  net.  Fourteenth 

Impression.  Also  a  Pocket  edition.  Fcap.  8vo, 

Cloth,  4/6  net. 

"  It  is  to  men  like  Mr.  Service  that  we  must  look  for  really  original 
verse  nowadays  ;  to  the  men  on  the  frontiers  of  the  world.  '  Ballads 
of  a  Cheechako  '  is  magnificent."  Oxford  Magazine. 

"  All  are  interesting,  arresting,  and  worth  reading  in  their  own 
setting  for  their  own  sakes.  They  are  full  of  life  and  fire  and 
muscularity,  like  the  strenuous  and  devil-may-care  fight  of  a  life 
they  describe."  Standard. 

RHYMES    OF    A    ROLLING    STONE.    By  Robert  W. 

Service.       Crown   8vo.       Cloth,    4/6   net.  Fifteenth 

Impression.  Also  a  Pocket  edition.  Fcap.  Svo, 

Cloth,  4/6  net. 

"  There  is  real  rollicking  fun  in  some  of  the  rhymed  stories,  and  some 
sound  philosophy  in  the  shorter  serious  poems  which  shows  that 
Mr.  Service  is  as  many  steps  above  the  ordinary  lesser  poets  in  hia 
thought  as  he  is  in  his  accomplishments."  Academy. 

"  Mr.  Robert  Service  is,  we  suppose,  one  of  the  most  popular  verse- 
writers  in  the  world.  His  swinging  measures,  his  robust  ballads  of 
the  outposts,  his  joy  of  living  have  fairly  caught  the  ear  of  his 
countrymen."  Spectator. 

THE  SPELL  OF  THE  TROPICS.  By  Randolph 
H.  Atkin.  Cloth,  4/6  net.  Second  Impression. 

The  poems  are  striking  pen-pictures  of  life  as  it  is  lived  by 
those  men  of  the  English-speaking  races  whose  lot  is  cast 
in  the  sun-bathed  countries  of  Latin-America.  Mr.  Atkin's 
verses  will  reach  the  hearts  of  all  who  feel  the  call  of  the 
wanderlust,  and,  having  shared  their  pleasures  and  hard- 
ships, his  poems  will  vividly  recall  to  "  old-timers  "  bygone 
memories  of  days  spent  in  the  Land  of  the  Coconut  Tree. 

T.  FISHER  I UNWIN  LTD.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C.2 


POETRY    THAT    T  H  R  I  L  L  S-confd. 

THE  SONG  OF  TIADATHA.  By  Owen  Rutter. 
Cloth,  4/6  net.  Third  Impression. 

Composed  on  the  familiar  metre  of  "  Hiawatha,"  "  The 
Song  of  Tiadatha  "  (Tired  Arthur),  an  extravaganza 
written  in  the  highest  spirits,  nevertheless  is  an  epic 
of  the  war.  It  typifies  what  innumerable  soldiers  have 
seen  and  done  and  the  manner  in  which  they   took    it. 

*'  This  song  of  Tiadatha  is  nothing  less  than  a  little  English  epic  of 
the  war."  The  Morning  Post. 

"  Every  Army  officer  and  ex-officer  will  hail  Tiadatha  as  a  brother. 
'  The  Song  of  Tiadatha '  is  one  of  the  happiest  skits  born  of 
the  war."  Evening  Standard. 

SONGS  OUT  OF  EXILE :  Being  Verses  of  African 
Sunshine    and    Shadow    and    Black    Man's    Twilight.     By 

CULLEN    GOULDSBURY,  Cloth, 

4/6  net.  Fourth  Impression. 

"  The  '  Rhodesian  Rhjrmes  '  won  for  their  author  the  journalistic 
title  of  '  The  Kipling  of  South  Africa,'  and  indeed  his  work  is  full  of 
crisp  vigour,  fire  and  colour.  It  is  brutal  in  parts  ;  but  its  brutality 
is  strong  and  realistic.  Mr  Gouldsbi.u'y  has  spent  many  years  in 
Rhodesia,  and  its  life,  black  and  white,  is  thoroughly  familiar  to 
him.  .  .  .  Mr.  Gouldsbury  is  undoubtedly  a  writer  to  be  reckoned 
with.  His  verse  is  informed  by  knowledge  of  wild  life  in  open  places 
and  a  measure  of  genuine  feeling  which  make  it  real  poetry." — Standard. 

FROM  THE  OUTPOSTS.  By  Cullen  Gouldsbury, 
Cloth,  4/6  net.     Third  Impression. 

"  Mr.  Cullen  Gouldsbury's  collections  of  his  verses  are  always  welcome, 
and  the  last,  '  From  the  Outposts,'  is  as  good  as  its  predecessor.  No 
one  has  quite  Mr.  Gouldsbury's  experience  and  gift."  Spectator, 

"  It  has  been  well  said  that  Mr.  Gouldsbury  has  done  for  the  white 
man  in  Africa  what  Adam  Lindsay  Gordon  in  a  measure  accomplished 
for  the  Commonwealth  and  Kipling  triumphantly  for  the  British 
race,  and  he  certainly  is  good  to  read."  Field. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London.  W.C.2 


POETRY    THAT    TURlhLS-contd. 

THE  HELL-GATE  OF  SOISSONS  and  other  Poems. 
("The  Song  of  the  Guns.")  By  Herbert  Kaufman. 
Cloth,  4/6  net.    Fifth  Impression. 

"  A  singular  gift  for  expressing  in  verse  the  facts,  the  heroism,  even 
the  humours  of  war ;  and  in  some  cases  voices  its  ideals  with  real 
eloquence."  The  Timet. 

"  Mr.  Kaufman  has  undoubtedly  given  us  a  book  worthy  of  the  great 
hour  that  has  brought  it  forth.  He  is  a  poet  with  a  martial  spirit 
and  a  deep,  manly  voice."  Daily  Mail. 

LYRA  NIGERIA.  By  Adamu.  (E.  C.  Adams). 
Cloth,  4/6  net.     Second  Impression. 

"  Mr.  E.  C.  Adams  (Adamu)  is  a  singer  of  Nigeria,  and  it  can  safely 
be  said  he  has  few,  if  any,  rivals.  There  is  something  in  these  illus- 
trations of  Nigerian  life  akin  to  the  style  of  Kipling  and  Service. 
The  heart  of  the  wanderer  and  adventurer  is  revealed,  and  in  particular 
that  spirit  of  longing  which  comes  to  all  .  .  .  who  have  gone  out 
to  the  far-lands  of  the  world."  Dundee  Advertiser. 


SUNNY  SONGS.  Poems.  By  Edgar  A.  Guest. 
Cloth,  4/6  net. 

In  America  Mr.  Guest  is  an  extraordinarily  popular  writer 
of  verses,  though  this  is  his  first  introduction  in  book  form 
to  the  British  public.  He  brims  over  with  sound  sense 
and  tonic  cheeriness.  He  is  keenly  sensible  of  the  humour 
of  domestic  life,  but  is  deeply  sympathetic  with  the 
associations  which  combine  in  the  word  "  Home."  Hence 
he  is  read  by  women  with  amusement  and  pleasure.  During 
the  war  his  poem,  "  Said  the  Workman  to  the  Soldier," 
circulated  by  the  hundred  thousand.  Like  Beranger 
and  all  successful  poets,  he  is  essentially  lyrical ;  that 
is    to    say,    there    is    tune   and   swing   in   all   his   verses. 


T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD  .  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C.2 


RICHARD     MIDDLETON'S     WORKS 

POEMS  AND  SONGS  {First  Series).  By  Richard 
MiDDLETON.  Cloth,  5/-  net. 

"  We  have  no  hesitation  in  placing  the  name  of  Richard  Middleton 
beside  the  names  of  all  that  galaxy  of  poets  that  made  the  later 
Victorian  era  the  most  brilliant  in  poetry  that  England  had  known 
since  the  Elizabethan."  Westminster  Btview. 

POEMS  AND  SONGS  {Second  Series).  By  Richard 
Middleton.  Cloth,  6/-  net. 

"Their  beauty  is  xindeniable  and  often  of  extraordinary  delicacy' 
for  Middleton  had  a  mastery  of  craftmanship  such  as  is  usually  given 
to  men  of  a  far  wider  imaginative  experience."  Poetry  Review. 

"  Among  th«  '  Poems  and  Songs  '  of  Richard  Middleton  are  to  be 
found  some  of  the  finest  of  contemporary  lyrics."         Country  Life, 

OTHER  WORKS        BY 

RICHARD       MIDDLETON 

THE   GHOST  SHIP  AND    OTHER  STORIES. 

MONOLOGUES. 
THE       DAY       BEFORE       YESTERDAY. 


THE  WAITING  WOMAN  and  other  Poems.  By 
Herbert  Kaufman.  Cloth,  4/6  net. 

"  Mr.  Kaufman's  work  possesses  in  a  high  degree  the  qualities  of 
sincerity  and  truth,  and  it  therefore  never  fails  to  move  the  reader. 
.  .  .  This  volimae,  in  short,  is  the  work  of  a  genuine  poet  and 
artist."  Aberdeen  Free  Press. 

"  A  versifier  of  great  virility  and  power."  Review  of  Reviews. 

T.  FISHER  UN  WIN  LTD..  1  Adelphi  Terrace.  London.  W.C.2 


BY    W.    B.    YEATS    AND    OTHERS 


POEMS.     By    W.     B.     Yeats. 
Crown  8vo,  Cloth,   10/6  net. 


Second     edition.     Large 
Ninth  Impression. 


•'  Love  songs,  faery  themes,  moods  of  meditation,  scenes  of  legendary 
wonder  .  .  .  is  it  possible  that  they  should  become  so  infinitely 
thrilling,  touching,  haunting  in  their  fresh  treatment,  as  though  they 
had  never  been,  or  poets  had  never  turned  to  them  ?  In  this  poet's 
hands  they  do  so  become.  Mr.  Yeats  has  given  us  a  new  thrill  of 
delight,  a  new  experience  of  beauty."  Daily  Chronicle. 

OTHER      POEMS      BY 

W.       B.      YEATS 

COUNTESS  CATHLEEN.  A  Dramatic  Poem.  Paper 
cover,  2/-  net. 

THE      LAND      OF      HEART'S      DESIRE.  Paper 

cover,  1/6  net. 


WHY    DON'T 

Cloth, 


THEY    CHEER  ?    By  R.  J. 


C.  Stead. 

4/6  net. 


"  Before  the  war  Mr.  Stead  was  known  to  Canadians  as  '  The  Poet 
of  the  Prairies.'  He  must  now  be  ranked  as  a  '  Poet  of  the  Empire.' 
.  .  .  There  is  a  strength,  a  beauty,  a  restrained  passion  in  his  war 
verses  which  prove  his  ability  to  penetrate  into  the  heart  of  things 
such  as  very  few  of  our  war  poets  have  exhibited." — Daily  Express, 


SWORDS  AND  FLUTES.  By  William  Kean  Seymour. 
Cloth,  4/-  net. 

"  Among  the  younger  poets  Mr.  Seymour  is  distinguished  by  his 
delicacy  of  technique.  '  Swords  and  Flutes '  is  a  book  of  grave  and  tender 
beauty  expressed  in  lucent  thought  and  jewelled  words.  '  The  Ambush ' 
is  a  lyric  of  mastery  and  fascination,  alike  in  conception  and  rhythm, 
which  should  be  included  in  any  representative  anthology  of  Georgian 
poetry."  Daily  Express. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C.2 


THE       MERMAID       SERIES 

THE      BEST      PLAYS     OF      THE      OLD      DRAMATISTS 

Literal  Reproductions  of  the  Old  Text.  With  Photo- 
gravure Frontispieces.  Thin  Paper  edition.  School  Edi- 
tion, Boards,  3/-  net ;  Cloth,  5/-  net ;  Leather,  7/6  net  each 
volume. 

Marlowe.  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  CHRISTOPHER 
MARLOWE.  Edited,  with  Critical  Memoir  and 
Notes,  by  Havelock  Ellis ;  and  containing  a  General 
Introduction  to  the  Series  by  John  Addington 
Symonds. 

Otway.  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  THOMAS  OTWAY. 
Introduction  and  Notes  by  the  Hon.  Roden  Noel. 

Ford.  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  JOHN  FORD.  Edited 
by  Havelock  Ellis. 

Massinger.  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  PHILLIP 
MASSINGER.  With  Critical  and  Biographical  Essay 
and  Notes  by  Arthur  Symons. 

Hey  wood  (T.).  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  THOMAS 
HEYWOOD.  Edited  by  A.  W.  Verity.  With 
Introduction  by  J.  A.  Symonds. 

Wycherley.  THE  COMPLETE  PLAYS  OF  WILLIAM 
WYCHERLEY.  Edited,  with  Introduction  and 
Notes,  by  W.  C.  Ward. 

NERO  AND  OTHER  PLAYS.  Edited  by  H.  P.  Home, 
Arthur  Symons,  A.  W.  Verity  and  H.  Ellis. 

Beaumont.  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  BEAUMONT 
AND  FLETCHER.  Introduction  and  Notes  by 
J.  St.  Loe  Strachey.     2  vols. 

Congreve.  THE  COMPLETE  PLAYS  OF  WILLIAM 
CONGREVE.     Edited  by  Alex.  C.  Ewald. 

Symonds  (J.  A.).  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  WEBSTER 
AND  TOURNEUR.  With  an  Introduction  and 
Notes  by  John  Addington  Symond^ 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C.2 


THE     MERMAID     SERIE  S-contd, 

Middleton  (T.).  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  THOMAS 
MIDDLETON.  With  an  Introduction  by  Algernon 
Charles  Swinburne.       2  vols. 

Shirley.    THE    BEST    PLAYS    OF    JAMES    SHIRLEY. 

With  Introduction  by  Edmund  Gosse. 

Dekker.     THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  THOMAS  DEKKER. 

Notes  by  Ernest  Rhys. 

Steele  (R.).  THE  COMPLETE  PLAYS  OF  RICHARD 
STEELE.  Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes, 
by  G.  A.  Aitken. 

Jonson.     THE     BEST     PLAYS     OF     BEN     JONSON. 

Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  Brinsley 
Nicholson  and  C.  H.  Herford.     2  vols. 

Chapman.     THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  GEORGE  CHAPMAN. 

Edited  by  William  Lyon  Phelps. 

Vanbrugh.  THE  SELECT  PLAYS  OF  SIR  JOHN 
VANBRUGH.  Edited,  with  an  Introduction  and 
Notes,   by  A.   E.   H.   Swain. 

Shadwell.  THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  THOMAS  SHAD- 
WELL.      Edited  by  George  Saintsbury. 

Dryden.     THE    BEST    PLAYS    OF    JOHN    DRYDEN. 

Edited  by  George  Saintsbury.     2  vols. 

Farquhar.    THE  BEST  PLAYS  OF  GEORGE  FARQUHAR. 

Edited,    and    with     an    Introduction,    by    William 
Archer. 

Greene.  THE  COMPLETE  PLAYS  OF  ROBERT 
GREENE.  Edited,  with  Introduction  and  Notes, 
by  Tho    as  H.  Dickinson. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD.,  1   Adelphi  Terrace,  London.  W.C.  2 


THE  ADVANCE  OF 
SOUTH   AMERICA 

A  FEW  NOTES  ON  SOME  INTERESTING  BOOKS 
DEALING  WITH  THE  PAST  HISTORY,  PRESENT  AND 
FUTURE  POSSIBILITIES  OF  THE  GREAT  CONTINENT 

When  in  1906  Mr.  Fisher  Unwin  commissioned  the  late 
Major  Martin  Hume  to  prepare  a  series  of  volumes  by 
experts  on  the  South  American  Republics,  but  httle 
interest  had  been  taken  in  the  country  as  a  possible  field 
for  commercial  development.  The  chief  reasons  for  this 
were  ignorance  as  to  the  trade  conditions  and  the  varied 
resources  of  the  country,  and  the  general  unrest  and 
instability  of  most  of  the  governments.  With  the  coming 
of  the  South  American  Series  of  handbooks  the  financial 
world  began  to  realize  the  importance  of  the  country, 
and,  with  more  settled  conditions,  began  in  earnest 
to  develop  the  remarkable  natural  resources  which 
awaited  outside  enterprise.  Undoubtedly  the  most 
informative  books  on  the  various  Republics  are  those 
included  in  The  South  American  Series,  each  of 
which  is  the  work  of  a  recognized  authority  on  his  subject. 

"  The  output  of  books  upon  Latin  America  has  in  recent  years  been 
very  large,  a  proof  doubtless  of  the  increasing  interest  that  is  felt 
in  the  subject.  Of  these  the  '  South  American  Series  '  is  the  most 
noteworthy."  The  Times. 

"  When  the  '  South  American  Series  '  is  completed,  those  who  take 
interest  in  Latin-American  afiairs  will  have  an  invaluable  encyclo- 
paedia at  their  disposal."  Westminster  Gazette. 

"  Mr.  Unwin's  '  South  American  Series '  of  books  are  of  special  interest 
and  value  to  the  capitalist  and  trader." — Chamber  oj  Commerce  J ournal. 

Full  particulars  of  the  volumes  in  the  "  South  American 
Series,"  also  of  other  interesting  books  on  South 
America,      will      be      found      in     the     pages     following. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD..  1  ADELPHI  TERRACE.    LONDON.  W.C.a 


THE  SOUTH  AMERICAN  SERIES 

1  Chile.  By  G.  F.  Scott  Elliott,  M.A.,  F.R.G.S.  With 
an  Introduction  by  Martin  Hume,  a  Map  and  39  Illus- 
trations.    Cloth,  21/-  net.  Sixth  Impression. 

"  An  exhaustive,  interesting  account,  not  only  of  the  turbulent 
history  of  this  country,  but  of  the  present  conditions  and  seeming 
prospects,"  Westminster  Gazette. 

2  Peru.  By  C.  Reginald  Enock,  F.R.G.S.  With  an  In- 
troduction by  Martin  Hume,  a  Map  and  64  Illustrations. 
Cloth,  18/-  net.  Fifth  Impression. 

•'  An  important  work.  .  .  .  The  writer  possesses  a  quick  eye  and 
a  keen  intelligence  ;  is  many-sided  in  his  interests,  and  on  certain 
subjects  speaks  as  an  expert.  The  volume  deals  fully  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country."  The  Times. 

3  Mexico.  By  C.  Reginald  Enock,  F.R.G.S.  With  an 
Introduction  by  Martin  Hume,  a  Map  and  64  Illustrations. 
Cloth,  15/-  net.  Fifth  Impression. 

"  The  book  is  most  comprehensive ;  the  history,  politics, 
topography,  industries,  resources  and  possibilities  being  most  ably 
discussed."  The  Financial  News. 

4  Argentina.  By  W.  A.  Hirst.  With  an  Introduction  by 
Martin  Hume,  a  Map  and  64  Illustrations.  Cloth,  15/- 
net.  Fifth  Impression. 

"  The  best  and  most  comprehensive  of  recent  works  on 
the  greatest  and  most  progressive  of  the  Republics  of  South 
America."  Manchester  Quardian. 

5  Brazil.  By  Pierre  Denis.  Translated,  and  with  an 
Historical  Chapter  by  Bernard  Miall.  With  a  Supple- 
mentary Chapter  by  Dawson  A.  Vindin,  a  Map  and 
86  Illustrations.     Cloth,  15/-  net.  Fourth  Impression. 

"Altogether  the  book  is  full  of  information,  which  shows  the  author  to 
have  made  a  most  careful  study  of  the  country." — Westminster  Gazette. 

T.   FISHER  UNWIN  LTD..  1   ADELPHI   TERRACE.    LONDON.   W.C.2 


THE  SOUTH  AMERICAN   SERIES 

6  Uruguay.  By  W.  H.  Koebel.  With  a  Map  and  55 
Illustrations.     Cloth,  15/-  net.  Third  Impression. 

"  Mr.  Koebel  has  given  us  an  expert's  diagnosis  of  the  present  con- 
dition of  Uruguay.  Glossing  over  nothing,  exaggerating  nothing,  he 
has  prepared  a  document  of  the  deepest  interest." — Evening  Standard. 

7  Guiana.  British,  French  and  Dutch.  By  James  Rodway. 
With  a  Map  and  82  Illustrations.  Cloth, 
15/-  net.                                                      Second  Impression. 

"  Mr.  Rodway's  work  is  a  storehouse  of  information,  historical, 
economical  and  sociological."  The  Times, 

8  Venezuela.     By  Leonard  V.  Dalton,  F.G.S.,  F.R.G.S. 

With  a  Map  and  45  Illustrations.  Cloth, 

15/-  net.  Third  Impression. 

"  An  exhaustive  and  valuable  survey  of  its  geography,  geology, 
history,  botany,  zoology  and  anthropology,  and  of  its  commercial 
possibilities  in  the  near  future."  Manchester  Guardian. 

9  Latin  America :  Its  Rise  and  Progress.  By  F.  Garcia- 
Calderon.  With  a  Preface  by  Raymond  Poincare, 
President  of  the  French  Republic.  With  a  Map  and  34 
Illustrations.     Cloth,  15/-  net.  Sixth  Impression. 

President  Poincar6,  in  a  striking  preface  to  this  book, 
says :  "  Here  is  a  book  that  should  be  read  and  digested 
by  every  one  interested  in  the  future  of  the  Latin  genius." 

10  G>Iombia.  By  Phanor  James  Eder,  A.B.,  LL.B.  With 
2  Maps  and  40  Illustrations.  Cloth, 
15/-  net.                                                           Fifth  Impression. 

"  Mr.  Eder's  valuable  work  should  do  much  to  encourage  invest- 
ment, travel  and  trade  in  one  of  the  least-known  and  most  promising 
of  the  countries  of  the  New  World."  Manchester  Ouardian. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD..  1   ADELPHI   TERRACE.    LONDON.    W.C.a 


THE   SOUTH   AMERICAN   SERIES 


11  Ecuador.  By  C.  Reginald  Enock,  F.R.G.S.  With  2 
Maps  and  37  Illustrations.  Cloth, 

15/-  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  Mr.  Enock's  very  thorough  and  exhaustive  volume  should  help 
British  investors  to  take  their  part  in  promoting  its  develop- 
ment. He  has  studied  and  described  the  country  in  all  its 
aspects."  Manchester  Qtuirdian. 


12  Bolivia.  By  Paul  Walle.  With  4  Maps  and  59  Illus- 
trations.    Cloth,  18/-  net.  Second  Impression. 

Bolivia  is  a  veritable  El  Dorado,  requiring  only  capital 
and  enterprise  to  become  one  of  the  wealthiest  States  of 
America.  This  volume  is  the  result  of  a  careful  investiga- 
tion made  on  behalf  of  the  French  Ministry  of  Commerce. 


13  Paraguay.  By  W.  H.  Koebel.  With  a  Map  and  32 
Illustrations.     Cloth,  15/-  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  Gives  a  great  deal  of  serious  and  useful  information  about  the 
possibilities  of  the  country  for  the  emigrant,  the  investor  and  the 
tourist,  concurrently  with  a  vivid  and  literary  account  of  its 
history."  Economist. 


14  Central  America :  Guatemala,  Nicaragua,  Costa  Rica, 
Honduras,  Panama  and  Salvador.  By  W.  H.  Koebel. 
With  a  Map  and  25  Illustrations.  Cloth, 

15/-  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  We  strongly  recommend  this  volume,  not  only  to  merchants  look- 
ing ahead  for  new  openings  for  trade,  but  also  to  all  who  wish  for 
an  accurate  and  interesting  account  of  an  almost  unknown 
world."  Saturday  Review. 

T.   FISHER    UNWIN   LTD..   1   ADELPHI   TERRACE,   LONDON.   W.C.a 


BOOKS    ON     SOUTH    AMERICA 

0  TH  ER    BOOKS    ON 
SO U  TH      AMERICA 

Spanish  America :  Its  Romance,  Reality  and  Future, 
By  C.  R.  Enock,  Author  of  "  The  Andes  and  the  Amazon," 
"Peru,"  "Mexico,"  "Ecuador."  Illustrated  and  with  a 
Map.     2  vols.  Cloth,  30/-  net  the  set. 

Starting  with  the  various  States  of  Central  America,  Mr. 
Enock  then  describes  ancient  and  modem  Mexico,  then 
takes  the  reader  successively  along  the  Pacific  Coast,  the 
Cordillera  of  the  Andes,  enters  the  land  of  the  Spanish 
Main,  conducts  the  reader  along  the  Amazon  Valley,  gives 
a  special  chapter  to  Brazil  and  another  to  the  River  Plate 
and  Pampas.  Thus  all  the  States  of  Central  and  South 
America  are  covered.  The  work  is  topographical,  de- 
scriptive and  historical ;  it  describes  the  people  and  the 
cities,  the  flora  and  fauna,  the  varied  resources  of  South 
America,  its  trade,  railways,  its  characteristics  generally. 


South  America :  An  Industrial  and  Commercial  Field. 
By  W.  H.  KoEBEL.     Illustrated.  Cloth, 

18/-  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  The  book  considers  such  questions  as  South  American  commerce, 
British  interests  in  the  various  Kepublics,  international  relations 
and  trade,  communications,  the  tendency  of  enterprise,  industries, 
etc.  Two  chapters  devoted  to  the  needs  of  the  continent  will  be 
of  especial  interest  to  manufacturers  and  merchants,  giving  as  they 
do  valuable  hints  as  to  the  various  goods  required,  while  the  chapter 
on  merchandise  and  commercial  travellers  affords  some  sound  and 
practical  advice.''  Chamber  of  Coynmerce  Journal. 

T.    FISHER  UNWIN  LTD..   1  ADELPHI   TERRACE.    LONDON.  W.C.  3 


BOOKS    ON    SOUTH    AMERICA 

Vagabonding    down    the    Andes.  By  Harry 

A.  Franck,  author  of  "A  Vagabond  Journey  Round  the 
World,"  etc.     With  a  Map  and  176  Illustrations. 
Cloth,  25/-  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  The  book  ia  a  brilliant  record  of  adventurous  travel  among 
strange  scenes  and  with  even  more  strange  companions,  and 
vividly  illustrates,  by  its  graphic  text  and  its  admirable  photo- 
graphs, the  real  conditions  of  life  in  the  backwood  regions  of  South 
America."  Manchester  Guardian, 

"Mr,  Franck  is  to  be  congratulated  on  having  produced  a  readable 
and  even  fascinating  book.  His  journey  lay  over  countries  in  which 
an  increasing  interest  is  being  felt.  Practically  speaking,  he  may 
be  said  to  have  started  from  Panama,  wandered  through  Colombia, 
spending  some  time  at  Bogota,  and  then  going  on  to  Ecuador,  of 
which  Quito  is  the  centre  Next  h^  traversed  the  fascinating  country 
of  the  Incas,  from  the  borders  of  which  he  entered  Bolivia,  going 
right  across  that  country  till  he  approached  Brazil.  He  passed 
through  Paraguay,  cut  through  a  comer  of  the  Argentine  to  Uruguay, 
and  so  to  the  River  Plata  and  the  now  well-known  town  of  Buenos 
Ayres."  Country  Life, 

In  the  Wilds  of  South  America  :  Six  Years  of  Explora- 
tion in  Colombia,  Venezuela,  British  Guiana,  Peru,  Bolivia, 
Argentina,  Paraguay  and  Brazil.  By  Leo  E.  Miller, 
of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History.  With  48 
Full-page  Illustrations  and  with  Maps.     Cloth,   21/-  net. 

This  volume  represents  a  series  of  almost  continuous 
explorations  hardly  ever  paralleled  in  the  huge  areas 
traversed.  The  author  is  a  distinguished  field  naturalist 
— one  of  those  who  accompanied  Colonel  Roosevelt  on 
his  famous  South  American  expedition — and  his  first  object 
in  his  wanderings  over  150,000  miles  of  territory  was  the 
observation  of  wild  life  ;  but  hardly  second  was  that  of 
exploration.  The  result  is  a  wonderfully  informative, 
impressive  and  often  thrilling  narrative  in  which  savage 
peoples  and  all  but  unknown  animals  largely  figure,  which 
forms  an  infinitely  readable  book  and  one  of  rare  value 
for    geographers,    naturalists    and    other    scientific    men. 

T.  FISHER   UNWIN  LTD..    1    ADELPHI   TERRACE.    LONDON.  W.C. 


BOOKS    ON     SOUTH    AMERICA 

The  Putumayo  :  The  Devil's  Paradise.  Travels  in  the 
Peruvian  Amazon  Region  and  an  Account  of  the  Atrocities 
committed  upon  the  Indians  therein.  By  E.  W.  Harden- 
BURG,  C.E.  Edited  and  with  an  Introduction  by  C. 
Reginald  Enock,  F.R.G.S.  With  a  Map  and  16 
Illustrations.  Demy   8vo,    Cloth, 

10/6  net.  Second  Impression. 

"  The  author  gives  us  one  of  the  most  terrible  pages  in  the  history 
of  trade."  Daily  Chronicle. 

Tramping  through  Mexico,  Guatemala  and  Hon" 
duras.  By  Harry  A.  France.  With  a  Map  and  88 
Illustrations.  Cloth,  7/6  net. 

"Mr.  Harry  Franck  is  a  renowned  vagabond  with  a  gift  for  vivid 
description.  .  .  ,  His  record  is  well  illustrated  and  he  tells  his  story 
in  an  attractive  manner,  his  descriptions  of  scenery  being  so  well 
done  that  one  feels  almost  inclined  to  risk  one's  life  in  a  wild  race 
dwelhng  in  a  land  of  lurid  beauty."  Liverpool  Mercury. 

"Mr.  Franck  has  combined  with  an  enthralling  and  amusing 
personal  narrative  a  very  vivid  and  searching  picture,  topogra- 
phical and  social,  of  a  region  of  much  political  and  economic 
interest."  Glasgow  Herald. 

Mexico  (Story  of  the  Nations).  By  Susan  Hale. 
With  Maps  and  47  Illus.    Cloth,  7/6  net.    Third  Impression. 

"  This  ia  an  attractive  book.  There  is  a  fascination  about  Mexico 
which  is  all  but  irresistible.  .  .  .  The  authoress  writes  with 
considerable  descriptive  power,  and  all  through  the  stirring 
narrative  never  permits  us  to  lose  sight  of  natural  surroiuid- 
ings."  Dttbliri   Review. 

Things  as  they  are  in  Panama.  By  Harry  A. 
Franck.    With  50  Illustrations.  Cloth,  7/6  net. 

"Mr.  Franck  writes  from  personal  knowledge,  fortified  by  the 
aptitude  of  a  practical  and  shrewd  observer  with  a  sense  of  humour, 
and  the  result  is  a  word-picture  of  unusual  vividness." — Standard. 
"A  sparkling  narrative  which  leaves  one  wondering  again  why  the 
general  reader  favours  modern  fiction  so  much  when  it  is  possible 
to  get  such  vivacious  yarns  as  this  about  strange  men  and  their  ways 
in  a  romantic  corner  of  the  tropics."  Daily  Mail. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN   LTD..    1    ADELPHI  TERRACE.  LONDON^  W.C.2 


BOOKS    ON    SOUTH    AMERICA 

The  Spell  of  the  Tropics.  Poems.  By  Randolph 
H.  Atkin.       Cloth,  4/6  net.  Second  Impression. 

The  author  has  travelled  extensively  in  Central  and  South 
America,  and  has  strongly  felt  the  spell  of  those  tropic  lands, 
with  all  their  splendour  and  romance,  and  yet  about  which 
so  little  is  known.  The  poems  are  striking  pen-pictures 
of  life  as  it  is  lived  by  those  men  of  the  English-speaking 
races  whose  lot  is  cast  in  the  sun-bathed  countries  of 
Latin-America.  Mr.  Atkin's  verses  will  reach  the  hearts 
of  all  who  feel  the  call  of  the  wanderlust,  and, 
having  shared  their  pleasures  and  hardships,  his 
poems  will  vividly  recall  to  "  old-timers "  bygone 
memories  of  days  spent  in  the  land  of  the  Coconut  Tree. 

Baedeker  Guide  to  the  United  States.  With 
Excursions  to  Mexico,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  and  Alaska. 
With    33    Maps    and    48    Plans.  Fourth  Edition, 

1909.  Cloth,  20/-  net. 


IMPORTANT.  Travellers  to  the  Republics  of  South  America 
will  find  WESSELY'S  ENGLISH-SPANISH  and  SPANISH- 
ENGLISH  DICTIONARY  and  WESSELY'S  LATIN-ENGLISH 
and  ENGLISH-LATIN  DICTIONARY  invaluable  books.  Bound 
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THE  STORY  OF 
THE    NATIONS 

THE  GREATEST  HISTORICAL  LIBRARY 
IN   THE  WORLD       ::       ::       67   VOLUMES 

Each  volume  of  ' '  The  Story  of  the  Nations  "  Series  is  the  work  of 
a  recognized  scholar,  chosen  for  his  knowledge  of  the  subject  and 
ability  to  present  history  in  an  attractive  form,  for  the  student  and 
the  general  reader.  The  Illustrations  and  Maps  are  an  attractive 
feature  of  the  volume,  which  are  strongly  bound  for  constant  use. 

67   Volumes.  Cloth,   7s.   6d.  net  each. 


See  page  2  for  an  announcement  of  a  new  volume. 


**  It  is  many  years  since  Messrs.  T.  Fisher  Unwin  commenced  the 
publication  of  a  series  of  volumes  now  entitled  '  The  Story  of  the 
Nations.'  Each  volume  is  written  by  an  acknowledged  authority 
on  the  country  with  which  it  deals.  The  series  has  enjoyed 
great  popularity,  and  not  an  uncommon  experience  being  the 
necessity  for  a  second,  third,  and  even  fourth  impression  of 
particular  volumes."  Scotsman. 

"  Probably  no  publisher  has  issued  a  more  informative  and  valuable 
series  of  works  than  those  included  in  '  The  Story  of  the 
Nations.' "  To-Day 

"The  series  is  likely  to  be  found  indispensable  in  every  school 
library."  Pall  Mall  Oazette. 

"  An  admirable  series."  Spectator. 

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our  own  can  boast  of.  Its  success  on  the  whole  has  been  very 
remarkable."  Daily  Chronicle. 

"  There  is  perhaps  no  surer  sign  of  the  increased  interest  that  is  now 
being  taken  in  historical  matters  than  the  favourable  reception  which 
we  believe  both  here  and  in  America  is  being  accorded  to  the  various 
volumes  of  '  The  Story  of  the  Nations '  as  they  issue  in  quick 
succession  from  the  press.  More  than  one  voliune  has  reached  its 
third  edition  in  England  alone.  .  .  .  Each  volume  is  written  by  one 
of  the  foremost  English  authorities  on  the  subject  with  which 
it  deals.  ...  It  is  almost  impossible  to  over-estimate  the  value 
of  the  series  of  carefully  prepared  volmnes,  such  as  are  the 
majority  of  those  comprising  this  library.  .  .  .  The  illustrations 
make  one  of  the  most  attractive  features  of  the  series." — Otiardian. 

T.  FISHER  UNWIN  LTD.,  1  Adelphi  Terrace,  London,  W.C.  2 


A  NEW  VOLUME  IN  "THE 
STORY  OF  THE  NATIONS" 
READY      IN      THE      SPRING,      1921 

BELGIUM 

FROM  THE  ROMAN  INVASION  TO  THE  PRESENT  DAY 

By  EMILE  CAMMAERTS.  With  Maps  and 
Illustrations.     Large  Crown  8vo.     Cloth,  12/6  net. 

A  complete  history  of  the  Belgian  nation  from  its  origins 
to  its  present  situation  has  not  yet  been  published  in  this 
country.  Up  till  now  Belgian  history  has  only  been 
treated  as  a  side  issue  in  works  concerned  with  the  Belgian 
art,  Belgian  literature  or  social  conditions.  Besides, 
there  has  been  some  doubt  with  regard  to  the  date  at 
which  such  a  history  ought  to  begin,  and  a  good  many 
writers  have  limited  themselves  to  the  modern  history 
of  Belgium  because  they  did  not  see  in  olden  times 
sufficient  evidence  of  Belgian  unity.  According  to  the 
modern  school  of  Belgian  historians,  however,  this  unity, 
founded  on  common  traditions  and  common  interests, 
has  asserted  itself  again  and  again  through  the  various 
periods  of  history  in  spite  of  invasion,  foreign  domination 
and  the  various  trials  experienced  by  the  country.  The 
history  of  the  Belgian  nation  appears  to  the  modern  mind 
as  a  slow  development  of  one  nationality  constituted  by 
two  races  speaking  two  different  languages  but  bound 
together  by  geographical,  economic  and  cultural  con- 
ditions. In  view  of  the  recent  proof  Belgium  has  given 
of  her  patriotism  during  the  world-war,  this  impartial 
enquiry  into  her  origins  may  prove  interesting  to  British 
readers.  Every  opportunity  has  been  taken  to  insist  on 
the  frequent  relationships  between  the  Belgian  provinces 
and  Great  Britain  from  the  early  middle  ages  to  the  present 
time,  and  to  show  the  way  in  which  both  countries  were 
affected  by  them.  Written  by  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished Belgian  writers,  who  has  made  a  specialty  of 
his  subject,  this  work  will  be  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
informing  contributions  in  "  The  Story  of  the  Nations.*' 


A  COMPLETE  LIST  OF  THE 
VOLUMES  IN  "THE  STORY  OF 
THE  NATIONS"  SERIES.  THE 
FIRST  AND  MOST  COMPLETE 
LIBRARY  OF  THE  WORLD'S  HISTORY 
PRESENTED     IN    A    POPULAR    FORM 


1  Rome:  From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  End  of 
the  Republic.  By  Arthur  Gilman,  M.A.  Third 
Edition.  With  43  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

2  The  Jews:  In  Ancient,  Mediaeval  and  Modern 
Times.  By  Professor  James  K.  Hosmer.  Eighth 
Impression.  With  87  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

8  Germany.  By  S.  Baring-Gould,  M.A.  Seventh 
Impression.  With  108  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

4  Carthage:  or  the  Empire  of  Africa.  By  Professor 
Alfred  J.  Church,  M.A.  With  the  Collaboration 
of  Arthur  Gilman,  M.A.  Ninth  Impres- 
sion.                                   With  43   Illustrations  and  Maps. 

5  Alexander's  Empire.  By  John  Pentland  Mahaffy, 
D.D.  With  the  Collaboration  of  Arthur  Gilman,  M.A. 
Eighth  Impression.  With  43  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

6  The  Moors  in  Spain.  By  Stanley  Lane-Poole.  With 
the  Collaboration  of  Arthur  Gilman,  M.A.  Eighth 
Edition.                                With  29  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

7  Ancient  Egypt.  By  Professor  George  Rawlinson, 
M.A,  Tenth  Edition.  Eleventh  Impres- 
sion.                                   With   50   Illustrations  and  Maps. 

8  Hungary.  In  Ancient,  Mediaeval  and  Modem  Times. 
By  Professor  Arminius  Vambery.  With  Collaboration 
of  Louis  Heilpin.  Seventh 
Edition.                             With  47  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

9  The  Saracens:  From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Fall 
of  Bagdad.  By  Arthur  Gilman,  M.A.  Fourth 
Edition.                               With  57  Illustrations  and  Maps. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  nATlONS-coniinued 

10  Ireland.  By  the  Hon.  Emily  Lawless.  Revised  and 
brought  up  to  date  by  J.  O 'Toole.  With  some 
additions  by  Mrs.  Arthur  Bronson.  Eighth 
Impression.                           With  58  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

11  Chaldea:  From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Rise  of 
Assyria.  By  Z£na!de  A.  Ragozin.  Seventh 
Impression.                           With  80  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

12  The  Goths:  From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  End 
of  the  Gk)thic  Dominion  in  Spain.  By  Henry  Bradley. 
Fifth  Edition.  With  35  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

13  Assyria :  From  the  Rise  of  the  Empire  to  the  Fall 
of  Nineveh.  (Continued  from  "  Chaldea.")  By 
Z^naIde  a.  Ragozin.  Seventh 
Impression.  With  81   Illustrations  and  Maps. 

14  Turkey.  By  Stanley  Lane-Poole,  assisted  by 
C.  J.  W.  Gibb  and  Arthur  Gilman.  New 
Edition.  With  a  new  Chapter  on  recent 
events  (1908).                   With  43   Illustrations  and  Maps. 

15  Holland.  By  Professor  J.  E.  Thorold  Rogers. 
Fifth  Edition.  With  57  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

16  Mediaeval  France :  From  the  Reign  of  Huguar  Capet 
to  the  beginning  of  the  16th  Century.  By  Gustave  Masson, 
B.A.        Sixth  Edition.      With  48  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

IT    Persia.     By  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin.  Fourth 

Edition.  With  56  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

18  Phoenicia.  By  Professor  George  Rawlinson,  M.A. 
Third  Edition.  With  47  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

19  Media,  Babylon*  and  Persia:  From  the  Fall  of 
Nineveh  to  the  Persian  War.  By  Z£naide  A.  Ragozin. 
Fourth  Edition.  With  17  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

20  The  Hansa  Towns.  By  Helen  Zimmern.  Third 
Edition.                                With  51  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

21  Early  Britain.  By  Professor  Alfred  J.  Church,  M.A. 
Sixth  Impression.  With  57  Illustrations  and  Maps. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATlONS-continued 

22  The  Barbary  Corsairs.  By  Stanley  Lane-Poole. 
With  additions  by  J.  D.  Kelly.  Fourth 
Edition.                                With  39  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

23  Russia.  By  W.  R.  Morfill,  M.A.  Fourth 
Edition.                                With  60  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

24  The  Jews  under  Roman  Rule.  By  W.  D.  Morrison. 
Second  Impression.  With  61  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

25  Scotland :  From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Present 
Day.  By  John  Mackintosh,  LL.D,  Fifth 
Impression.                           With  60  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

26  Switzerland.  By  Lina  Hug  and  R.  Stead.  Third 
Impression.  With  over  54  Illustrations,  Maps,  etc. 

27  Mexico.  By  Susan  Hale.  Third 
Impression.                          With  47  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

28  Portugal.  By  H.  Morse  Stephens,  M.A  New 
Edition,  With  a  new  Chapter  by  Major  M.  Hume  and 
5  new  Illustrations.  Third  Impres- 
sion.                                    With  44  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

29  The  Normans.  Told  chiefly  in  Relation  to  their 
Conquest  of  England.  By  Sarah  Orne  Jewett.  Third 
Impression.  With  35  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

30  The    Byzantine  Empire.    By  C.  W.  C.  Oman,  M.A. 

Third  Edition.  With  44  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

31  Sicily :  Phoenician.  Greek,  and  Roman.  By  Professor 
E.  A.  Freeman.    Third  Edition.        With  45  Illustrations. 

32  The  Tuscan  Republics  (Florence,  Siena,  Pisa,  Lucca) 
with  Genoa.  By  Bella 
Duffy.                               With  40  Illustrations  and  Maps, 

33  Poland.  By  W.  R.  Morfill.  Third  Impres- 
sion.                                      With  50  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

84  Parthia.  By  Professor  George  Rawlinson.  Third 
Impression.  With  48  Illustrations  and  Maps. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATlONS-cordinued 

85  The  Australian  Commonwealth.  (New  South  Wales, 
Tasmania,  Western  Australia,  South  Australia,  Victoria, 
Queensland,  New  Zealand.)  By  Greville  Tregarthen. 
Fifth  Impression.  With  36  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

36  Spain.  Being  a  Summary  of  Spanish  History  from 
the  Moorish  Conquest  to  the  Fall  of  Granada  (a.d, 
711-1492).  By  Henry  Edward  Watts.  Third 
Edition.                             With  86   Illustrations   and   Maps. 

37  Japan.  By  David  Murray,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.  With  a  new 
Chapter  by  Joseph  W.  Longford.  85  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

38  South  Africa.  (The  Cape  Colony,  Natal,  Orange  Free 
State,  South  African  Republic,  Rhodesia,  and  all  other 
Territories  south  of  the  Zambesi.)  By  Dr.  George 
McCall  Theal,  D.Litt.,  LL.D.  Revised  and  brought  up  to 
date.    Eleventh  Impression.    With  39  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

89    Venice.      By    Alethea    Wiel.  Fifth 

Impression.  With  61  Illustrations  and  a  Map. 

40  The  Crusades :  The  Story  of  the  Latin  Kingdom  of 
Jerusalem.  By  T.  A.  Archer  and  C.  L.  Kingsford. 
Third  Impression.  With  58  Illustrations  and  3  Maps. 

41  Vedic  India:  As  embodied  principally  in  the  Rig- 
Veda.  By  Zenaide  A.  Ragozin.  -  Third 
Edition.                            With    36    Illustrations    and    Maps. 

42  The    West    Indies    and    the    Spanish    Main.         By 

James  Rod  way,  F.L.S.  Third 

Impression.  With  48  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

43  Bohemia  :  From  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Fall  of 
National  Independence  in  1620 ;  with  a  Short  Summary 
of  later  Events,  By  C.  Edmund  Maurice.  Second 
Impression.  With  41  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

44  The  Balkans  (Rumania,  Bulgaria,  Servia  and  Monte- 
negro). By  W.  Miller,  M.A.  New  Edition.  With 
a  new  Chapter  containing  their  History  from  1296  to 
1908.  With  39  Illu':trations  and  Maps. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATlONS-coruinued 

45  Canada.  By  Sir  John  Bourinot,  C.M.G.  With  68 
Illustrations  and  Maps.  Second  Edition.  With  a  new 
Map  and  revisions,  and  a  supplementary  Chapter  by 
Edward  Porritt.  Third  Impression. 

46  British  India.  By  R.  W.  Frazer,  LL.D.  Eighth 
Impression.  With  80  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

47  Modern  France,  ITSS'ISSS.  By  Andre  Lebon. 
With  26  Illustrations  and  a  Chronological  Chart  of  the 
Literary,  Artistic,  and  Scientific  Movement  in  Con- 
temporary France.  Fourth  Impression. 

48  The  Franks.  From  their  Origin  as  a  Confederacy  to 
the  Establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  France  and  the 
German  Empire.  By  Lewis  Sergeant.  Second 
Edition.                             With  40   Illustrations   and  Maps. 

49  Austria.  By  Sidney  Whitman.  With  the  Colla- 
boration of  J.  R.  McIlraith.  Third 
Edition.                              With  35  Illustrations  and  a  Map. 

50  Modem   England    before    the    Reform   Bill.         By 

Justin  McCarthy.  With  31  Illustrations. 

51  China.  By  Professor  R.K.Douglas.  Fourth  Edition. 
With  a  new  Preface.  51  Illustrations  and  a  Map. 
Revised    and  brought    up   to  date  by  Ian   C.  Hannah. 

52  Modem  England  under  Queen  Victoria :  From  the 
Reform  Bill  to  the  Present  Time.  By  Justin  McCarthy. 
Second   Edition.  With  46  Illustrations. 

53  Modem  Spain,  1878-1898.  By  Martin  A.  S.  Hume. 
Second  Impression.  With  37  Illustrations  and  a  Map. 

54  Modem  Italy,  1748-1898.  By  Professor  Pietro 
Orsi.  With  over  40  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

55  Norway  :  From  the  Earliest  Times.  By  Professor 
Hjalmar  H.  Boyesen.  With  a  Chapter  by  C.  F. 
Keary.  With  77  Illustrations  and  Maps. 

56  Wales.  By  Owen  Edwards.  With  47  Illustrations 
and  7  Maps.  Fifth  Impression. 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATlONS-continued 

67  Mediaeval  Rome  :  From  Hildebrand  to  Clement  VIII, 
1073-1535.    By  William  Miller.     With  35  Illustrations. 

68  The  Papal  Monarchy:  From  Gregory  the  Great  to 
Boniface  VIII.  By  William  Barry,  D.D.  Second 
Impression.                         With  61   Illustrations  and  Maps. 

69  Mediaeval    India    under    Mohammedan    Rule.       By 

Stanley    Lane-Poole.  With    59    Illus- 

trations. Twelfth  Impression. 

60  Parliamentary  England :  The  Evolution  of  the 
Cabinet  System,  1660-1832.  By  Edward 
Jenks.                                                    With    47    Illustrations. 

61  Buddhist  India.  By  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids.  Fourth 
Impression.  With  57   Illustrations  and  Maps. 

62  Mediaeval  England,  1066-1350.  By  Mary 
Bateson.                                                 With  93  Illustrations. 

63  The  Coming  of  Parliament.  (England,  1350-1660.) 
By  L.  Cecil  Jane.  With  51  Illustrations  and  a  Map. 

64  The  Story  of  Greece :  From  the  Earliest  Times 
to  A.D.  14.  By  E.  S.  Shuck- 
burgh.                   With  2  Maps  and  about  70  Illustrations. 

65  The  Story  of  the  Roman  Empire.  (29  b.c.  to  a.d. 
476.)  By  H.  Stuart  Jones.  Third 
Impression.                         With  a  Map  and  52  Illustrations. 

66  Sweden  and  Denmark.  With  Chapters  on  Finland 
and  Iceland.  By  Jon 
Stefansson.                     With  Maps  and  40  Illustrations. 

67  Belgium.      {See    page    2    for    special    announcemerU.) 

important.-ask  your  bookseller  to  let 
you     examine     a     specimen    volume    of 

"THE      story      of      the      NATIONS "      SERIES 


T.     FISHER      UNW^IN      Ltd.,     1     Adelphi 
Terrace,  London,   W.C.  2 

And    of    all    Booksellers    throughout    the    World 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


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i  1     1938. 


'31  1951 


Dog  1    'S^ 


Form  L-9-JI 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNU 

AT 


UCLA-Young    Research    Library 

JN511    .M14p 
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III  lll  ll  lll  "I  ll  II  II  lll[  jlll  III 


L  009   559  660   7 


UC  SOUTHFR'J  Rrr.lDNAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA     001339  174 


4 


